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Chapter Text

Deep in the pits of the Ministry of Magic, there is an alarm that goes off every time an Unforgivable Curse is used. They are, after all, punishable in Wizarding law. Sometimes the Aurors monitoring the alarm look at the address where it was triggered and dispatch their colleagues to investigate. And sometimes they look at the address and then look the other way.

Sometimes a second smaller alarm goes off alongside the first one – one that somberly signals that the epicenter of the curse stems from the address where the family of a Hogwarts student resides. And when that happens, the Aurors send an owl to two people: Dumbledore and the student’s head of house. 

And then they gather up their wands and their cameras and their brave faces and prepare to either save or arrest a child.

***

When McGonagall receives the frantic owl – which keeps pecking incessantly at the window of her office – it’s half past three in the morning and she’s sleeping fitfully. Spring term is set to start in two days and there’s still so much to prepare – she has to devise an exam on the reading she assigned over the break, finish grading some lingering essays from last term, and figure out what to do about Arnie Rothbarten’s disruptive nose blowing that her stern looks never seem to quell. Poppy keeps inviting her for drinks in Hogsmeade, but she really hasn’t any time, and the guilt of that is gnawing a hole in her stomach that makes sleep elusive.

Annoyed, or perhaps thankful, at the interruption, she pulls on a dressing gown and rushes over to slide open the window, scowling at the bird as it pecks her hand once and flies away without waiting for payment or a treat.

She glances at the seal on the letter and any half-achieved drowsiness departs immediately.

She’s only gotten two of these before – one when Melody McGrath’s mother used Avada Kedavra on an invading adder snake and the other when David Harvey tried to Imperio his younger brother to get him to clean his room. Why David didn’t just use the wand to clean the room himself, McGonagall isn’t sure, but he never was the brightest star in the sky. 

But both of those incidents were over a decade ago, the students they concerned long since graduated. McGonagall looks to the moon before she opens the letter, hoping this is just another minor issue like the first two. 

She takes a deep breath, unfolds the parchment, and feels her beating heart drop through the soles of her slippers.

***

When she gets to Grimmauld, a swarm of Aurors is already rushing into the house. Walburga and Orion greet the officers at the front door, calm and collected, as if they were expecting this crowd for tea. Orion’s expression is grim, yet his jaw is set and his shoulders are pulled back. Walburga’s eyes seem vacant, in the same way that McGonagall’s soul feels.

She pushes her way further into the house as a few Aurors break off to speak to the parents. She makes it past two massive sitting rooms, an ornate dining room, and into a stuffy library, guided by the heavy footfalls of the rest of the Aurors and the eerie silence of their hushed voices.

As she rounds the corner of a stack of books, every fluid in her body freezes. She feels like her whole being has been submerged in an icy shroud, and her teeth start chattering echoingly loud in the quiet space. She’s breathing in frozen water and it clogs her throat and her lungs and her limbs and she can’t move.

This is what abject fear feels like. This is the end of the world.

She stares.

Regulus is kneeling on the ground in a pool of his brother’s blood, legs turned red and slippery from the fluid. He’s watching the body, unmoving, unblinking. His chest doesn’t seem to be rising and falling. He is a statue. He is a memorial.

And Sirius. 

But it’s not Sirius. It’s a body. On the ground. Face down. Limbs twisted in odd ways. Hair matted with red. Neck still sweaty. Skin scraped and bruised and purple in parts. Blood is leaking from the scalp. 

This body was never alive. It can’t have been. Something that dead never could have contained life. It’s not possible.

An Auror reaches down and touches Regulus’ shoulder, trying to guide him away from the body, and he starts shrieking. The sound pierces the air, louder than any alarm, and all at once, McGonagall’s body is liquid once more.

He keeps shrieking. It takes five men to pull him up and away and he bites and claws and kicks the whole way.

Put him down! McGonagall wants to yell, but she doesn’t make a sound.

They put a sheet over the body. Someone announces the time of death. Estimated between 2:45 and 3:00. The body is still warm. The blood is still seeping.

She must be dreaming. She must have finally fallen asleep.

She overhears an Auror.

“We checked their wands. Crucio.”

“From which one?”

“Both.”

She makes it back to the front door. Walburga and Orion are gone. Regulus, too. 

Dumbledore is there, in the doorway, face upset but not surprised.

He sees her, offers her a grimace. She heads towards him. Her feet are slow, uncoordinated. Her teeth are still chattering.

“It’s Sirius,” he tells her, as if she hadn’t seen the body.

“No,” she replies. Sirius isn’t dead.

Sirius is on his broom, racing laps around the Quidditch pitch just to show off his speed and grace and inspire jealousy in the other houses’ teams and admiration in his own.

Sirius is favoring his left leg over his right with a subtle limp as he exits her classroom.

Sirius is sneaking around the halls at night with Potter’s invisibility cloak, giggling with his dormmates as they enchant the paintings in the Transfiguration corridor to sing obnoxious renditions of Pink Floyd’s Time .

Sirius is falling asleep in class and waking up screaming from nightmares.

Sirius is protecting Lupin’s secret and visiting him in the hospital after full moons with armfuls of candy and books and whatever the other boy requests.

Sirius is skipping the summer reading and lying that he just “couldn’t be bothered” to review it.

Sirius is drinking butterbeers in Hogsmeade with a foam mustache and no cares in the world, surrounded by his best mates and the buzzing warmth of hot drinks on a cold day.

Sirius is hiding a bruise under the sleeves of his robes. She can see it when he lifts his wand in a certain way.

Why didn’t she ever say anything? Why didn’t she send him to Poppy or Dumbledore or question him herself? 

He’s sixteen. He’s a child.

He can’t be dead.

The body on the floor was broken, mangled. It can’t have been his.

“It’s Sirius, Minerva,” Dumbledore repeats, and the whole world around her burns to ash.

***

Crisp, fall air greets Sirius as he steps off the Hogwarts Express and onto the Hogsmeade platform. The leaves on the trees are sparkling rust and amber and a deep, vibrant carmine, and the evening air smells of bonfires and comfort.

James jumps off the train behind him, clapping a hand down on Sirius’ shoulder in excitement, and Sirius sucks in a gasp to stifle the pained screech that fights to escape his throat as the palm connects with the deep bruise on the far end of his clavicle.

He breathes in and out rapidly, willing the oxygen to ease the hurt. Today isn’t supposed to be about that. It’s supposed to be about looking forward, starting new, laughing with James, catching up with Peter, and snogging Remus silly once everyone else is finally asleep.

So he breathes, and he searches for something good in every moment.

Unfortunately, Remus is an observant bastard and as soon as Sirius gasps, he shoots him a questioning look, eyebrow raised in suspicion. Sirius rolls his eyes back at him and shrugs off James’ palm.

“Come on,” he says, “I want to unpack a bit before we get to the feast.” He rushes ahead before Remus can reply, jumping into one of the carriages enchanted to move on its own towards the castle. James bundles in next to him.

“It’s good to be back,” the other boy says, grinning widely. His hair is messy and his glasses are askew and Sirius isn’t sure there’s anyone else in the whole world he loves as much as he loves James Potter.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

***

They’re attempting to change into their robes before heading down to the Great Hall when James suddenly grabs the pillow off his bed and lobs it at Remus’ head. Moony’s got his jumper halfway over his face during its removal, so he never sees it coming.

Sirius stifles a laugh at the way the taller boy wobbles wildly with the impact, yelping out an affronted “Ow!”

Remus yanks the jumper off, scowling around at them all.

“Who did that?” he demands.

Sirius tries his very best to look innocent. James just offers Remus a shit-eating grin.

“Fine,” Remus mutters. “Be that way.” But Sirius knows he’s not really angry. The proof comes a moment later when Remus grabs both his and Peter’s pillows and hits James and Sirius over the heads with them, one in each hand.

“Hey!” Sirius shouts as James starts giggling. “Why didn’t you hit Peter too?” he whines petulantly.

Remus considers for a second, then chucks both pillows at Peter who darts away, narrowly avoiding them both.

“I declare war,” Peter gripes, and the whole room dissolves into a whirl of limbs and pillows and laughter.

How lovely , Sirius thinks. He could live forever for moments like these. He can stand anything if it means returning to this.

Once they’ve settled back down, they manage to successfully change into their robes, but not before Remus glances the bruise on Sirius’ shoulder.

“Fell off my broom,” Sirius explains, his voice challenging Moony to call him out on the lie.

“Bullshit,” Remus replies easily. The observant, caring bastard. “They hurt you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Sirius,” James cuts in, his face getting that sad look of concern that makes Sirius’ skin crawl. James isn’t supposed to look like that. James is supposed to be happy. James is supposed to make Sirius happy, not make him think about his father’s hand gripping tight and yanking him around just to assert his dominance.

“If I can handle Moony in wolf form, I can handle being pushed around a little,” he snaps before James can finish. It’s a low blow and he can see the tightening in Remus’ jaw, but he doesn’t really care. They need to leave this alone.

“I’m here now,” he continues, softening his tone. “I’m good.”

“You don’t look good,” Remus answers promptly.

“Well, I’ve gotten worse from you on a full moon, so…”

Remus holds his gaze, eyes intense and disapproving.

It’s fine , Sirius thinks. They’ll snog it out later.

“Just drop it,” Sirius commands. “We’re already late for the feast.”

Speaking of which, Sirius feels his appetite for food fading a bit as he notices the cotton candy colors of the dimming sunset outside, the translucent moon beginning to loom watchful overhead. He wants to see it grow stronger, brighter. He wants to taste the night on his tongue, wants to feel wild and free and unconstrained.

“Or…” he suggests, tone now playful, “we could skip the feast.” He grabs his broom from the bottom of his trunk, glancing at James with a smirk on his lips. “I haven’t flown all summer.”

Remus shoots him a look as if to say “I knew you were lying earlier” but Sirius ignores it.

“We’d have the whole Quidditch pitch to ourselves…”

The concern on James’ face begins to abate and replace itself with a hesitant excitement.

Got him , Sirius thinks.

Chapter Text

The moment Effie tells James, his knees buckle. He tumbles down to the carpeted floor in his bedroom, trying to gasp in air that’s fled in the wake of his horror.

There’s one day until school starts again. It’s snowing outside, and the glittering flakes make the whole world seem smaller, quieter somehow. They’re beautiful. Freezing cold and devastatingly stunning.

James throws up on the carpet. Monty is still downstairs, begging the Auror for details about how it happened, about what went so fatally, tragically wrong. But Effie is right here next to James, her eyes leaking matching tears, her chest heaving in synchronous sobs. 

Remus , James thinks, his mind jumping from one impossibility to the next, trying to make sense of this information that makes no sense at all. They’re going to tell Remus next.

***

When Remus finds out, he punches the Auror. Square in the nose. He throws things and he screams and he breaks a few knuckles and won’t let Hope fix them. 

He demands to know how. They tell him there’s an investigation, that they can’t reveal any details yet. He throws another punch.

He doesn’t believe them. Not until James’ owl shows up with a letter containing nothing but his name and fat tear stains.

***

Andromeda finds the Aurors first.

“Something happened,” she whispers into the stale air in the small Ministry office of the Head Auror.

The man nods solemnly. He doesn’t speak.

“How bad?” she wheezes, her lungs already deflating because she can feel it. They’ve burned her off the tapestry, they’ve cut all strings, but she can feel it still. It’s always there, like a twisting undercurrent of darkness, something creeping and lurking in her very bones. A two-way street.

It means they’re watching. But it means she is as well.

In the wee hours of the morning, it had burned inside her, squirming and shrieking and waking her abruptly into a gasping panic. Ted had turned to her in bed, afraid, and she had clutched at her chest, at the sudden pain she felt there. 

That’s when she knew.

“Sirius Black is dead,” the Auror tells her, and the undercurrent starts strangling her throat.

***

They can’t have a funeral yet because they’re keeping the body for investigation. James overhears his mother tell his father that it’ll have to be a closed casket anyway. He’s too mangled. Mangled beyond magic. You can’t use healing spells to fix something no longer alive.

It’s not said unkindly, but it is said clinically. James slips into the room, nose red and lips cracked. 

“Why…why have you seen him?” His voice is wonky, hoarse from all the crying and muffled by the deep weight crushing his chest. 

It’s only been a day since he found out. It feels like years. Like the snow outside is from when he was eleven years old that first winter holiday from school when the letters he sent to Sirius were written on red cards sealed with gold wax and his handwriting was wobbly and childish. Like the untouched world outside of this house is still young and new and hopeful. It doesn’t know what he knows. 

It hasn’t seen a body.

Effie looks at him, and her face cracks. Every one of them is an open wound. Mother, father, son, all gaping sores, infected with festering grief.

“Poppy Pomfrey and I are doing the autopsy,” she tells James quietly.

“Why would they make you do that?” James asks in disbelief. “Why would they make you see him that way?”

How cruel can they be? he thinks. His body is numb except for the digging pain in his bloodstream. His heart keeps pumping it through his veins, drowning him in its merciless hold.

“I requested it,” Effie replies, her voice but a wisp. “We both did.”

“What?” James asks, but it comes out more like a sob. “Why?”

Effie pulls him into her arms, and he buries his face deep into her shoulder, pretending the darkness there can shield him from the cruelty of the world.

“Because I want the last touches he feels to be gentle ones. Ones from someone who cares…cared…for him.”

***

McGonagall contacts James’ parents saying he doesn’t have to go back to school if he doesn’t feel like it. That he can skip this term and make it up later. But he just can’t see the point in wallowing in grief all day in this too-big house where his mum comes home reeking of mortuary potions and his dad looks at him like he can see the crumpled pieces of James’ psyche.

“Maybe if I go back to Hogwarts, I’ll find him there,” he tells Effie the night before the train is set to parade them all to Scotland. He’s clutching a cup of burning tea in his hands that’s turning his palms red with the heat of it, but he can’t really feel it. “Maybe he’ll be on the train, waiting for me in our regular compartment.”

Effie pulls the mug out of his hands and sets it down gently on the table.

“You can write to us any time and we’ll come get you,” she promises, her face blotchy. “No matter what.”

***

There are no words that even begin to describe the feeling of soaring through the twilight, with stars in his hair and wind in his ears and James by his side. He is invincible. He is everlasting.

Sirius swings a leg over his broom, riding it side saddle for a moment as he raises one knee and tucks a foot under himself, using it to propel the rest of his body upward until he’s standing firmly atop the broom, higher than he’s ever been before. He looks upward into the heavens, feels the endless expanse of the navy sky like an exquisite promise of the beauty that exists in this world.

How wonderful it is to be alive to experience this. How lucky he is to be here, in this moment.

He opens his mouth and screams into the night. Not something fearful or pained, but rather something triumphant. Something amazed and overwhelmed. Something filled with wonder.

James seems nervous at first, but, as soon as he realizes Sirius’ glee, he begins cheering him on, marvelling at his feat. Remus is shouting at him from the stands to get down, throwing dirty looks at Peter who sits next to him, hooting and hollering with joy. Eventually Remus caves, offering Sirius a single, underwhelming “woo-hoo,” but as Sirius swerves over to him, he can see the impressed smirk of his mouth. He’ll kiss that off later.

McGonagall eventually finds them on the pitch, shouting at them to land immediately and ushering them back inside the castle and to her office once they do. They’re sweaty and out of breath, but Sirius has never felt more alive, and he can’t stop smiling like an idiot.

“I should give you all detention,” McGonagall begins, her stern tone familiar and comforting somehow. “All students are expected to attend the Start-of-Term Feast, not be gallivanting across the Quidditch pitch in the dark.”

James’ head is bowed, but Sirius shrugs his shoulders, then curses internally at the pain flares that shoot from his right one.

“Come on, Professor, we were just having fun. Nobody got hurt,” he reasons.

McGonagall glares back at him, but he can see the fondness underneath it, and he smirks in triumph.

“Get to your dormitory. All of you,” she instructs, and they file out of the office with exhilaration still running through their veins.

***

As soon as James’ and Peter’s breathing evens out, Sirius slips out of his own four-poster bed and into Remus’. The other boy is awake, waiting for him.

Sirius wastes no time. Remus’ lips are chapped and rough, scraping against his just so in a way that makes tingles run down to Sirius’ toes. He could lose himself here, in the magic of this night. This is the only place Sirius has ever found perfection.

And then, snaking a hand under his pajama shirt and resting it lightly on Sirius’ hip, Remus stops him.

Sirius pulls back, a pitiful whine slipping from his throat. Remus’ eyes study him, and Sirius can practically feel the wolf night-vision on his skin.

“Are you really okay?” Remus whispers, the fingers of his other hand ghosting over Sirius’ shoulder.

“Yes.” Sirius leans back in, but Remus stops him again with a squeeze to his hip. Sirius wants to groan in frustration.

“Promise?”

“Yes,” he repeats, more forcefully.

“If anything happened to you…” Remus trails off, and Sirius can see the fear in the lines of his face. He knows it’s difficult for them – James and Remus and Peter – not knowing exactly what happens to him each time he returns to Grimmauld for a holiday.

He just doesn’t want them to worry. He just wants everything to be okay. Everything is supposed to be okay when he’s here.

“I’d let yo u know if it was actually getting bad. I swear. You and James, you’d be the first to know.”

It’s not a lie. Sirius has every intention of doing something if it reaches a certain limit. It’s just that that limit keeps growing and growing, his mind and body acclimating to the abuse and excusing more and more of it with less and less effort.

He turns his head to the side, resting his temple against Remus’ chest and closing his eyes.

“They actually seem to be calming down a bit. Trusting me more.”

“You’re nearly seventeen, Sirius,” his father had told him, voice sharp and unforgiving. “You’ll have to make choices soon.”

Usually, all Sirius’ choices are made for him at Grimmauld.

Remus makes a doubtful sound beneath him, but it doesn’t matter. Sirius is warm and cozy and Remus’ beating heart is ticking time underneath his cheek.

Everything is going to be fine.

Chapter Text

It becomes evident as James, Remus, and Peter wait on Platform 9 ¾ that the news has spread. Peter tells them there was something in the Daily Prophet about it yesterday – no specific details, no mention of a cause of death, just a few lines at the bottom of the front page saying that the Black heir was found dead in the family mansion. Between that and pureblood gossip, most of the students seem to know, indicated by the varyingly heartbroken, nervous, and pitying looks thrown their way.

They still don’t know exactly how he died. Remus swears his parents did something, and James agrees it’s likely, but killing their own son? It just seems impossible. It all just seems impossible.

Effie and Fleamont hug them all a million times over, ignoring the nosy glances of other eavesdropping parents, before finally letting them board the train.

They trudge to their usual compartment, and James allows the faint spark of hope within him to grow and strengthen into a steady flame. Perhaps Sirius will be lounging on the leftmost bench, tracing lewd shapes on the window as he waits for them to arrive with his signature smile plastered on his face.

But when they reach the compartment, it’s empty as it’s ever been. 

Remus gets there first, freezing at the door for one haunting moment before forcing his feet forward. All three of them pile onto the right bench, leaving the other unoccupied. Their knees touch and their fingers tremble. No one speaks. 

Until Regulus shows up.

James’ heart skips a beat when he sees the younger boy’s silhouette appear at the door to their compartment. Why is he back at school? He shouldn't be here. His brother just… He shouldn’t be here.

Sirius and Regulus didn’t have the best relationship. James knows this. Remus and Peter and half the school know it, too. Sirius’ views were too extreme for Regulus and Regulus’ views were too extreme for Sirius. They disagreed about their politics and their family and their Hogwarts houses and everything in between. They argued and they yelled and they threw a few punches every now and then.

But one September, at the beginning of fourth year, Sirius came back to school and told James that sometimes he felt like Regulus was the only thing grounding him to earth. That sometimes he didn’t feel real, but that his feelings for Regulus – whether hate or love – always did.

No one knows what happened that night, but James does know that if Regulus felt at all about his brother how Sirius did about him, then he must be floating untethered in his grief right now.

Remus must have a similar thought – that none of them know what really transpired on that fateful night – because he jumps up from his seat and yanks the door open, getting a handful of Regulus’ robes and pulling him inside. 

Regulus gasps but doesn’t resist.

“What happened?” Remus snarls immediately.

Regulus looks worse than the rest of them. And he also looks a bit too much like Sirius, which aches in the way only grief can, and so James turns his head and looks away.

“Regulus,” Remus repeats, grabbing the boy again and shaking him when he doesn’t answer. “What happened?”

“I can’t say anything,” Regulus croaks out, and it sounds as if someone has shredded his vocal cords, leaving only mangled tendrils behind. “The solicitors, they told me not to.”

“What solicitors?” Remus growls, and he’s so much taller than Regulus. Taller than them all, and menacing when he wants to be. James doesn’t want him to be. James wants Remus to be his usual quiet, kind self. James wants Regulus’ voice to sound normal. James wants Sirius to be grinning across from him on this train.

“Someone’s on trial?” Remus continues. “Someone that killed him?”

He sounds so angry. James forces himself to look back. Regulus is staring at the empty bench. James knows what he’s looking for.

“You can talk to us,” James says softly. “You can tell us.”

“I can’t tell anyone,” Regulus whispers. He pulls out of Remus’ grasp, turning around and walking towards the door.

“Regulus –” Remus snaps, not wanting him to get away before they get some answers.

“I’m sorry,” Regulus says pitifully, but it seems genuine. 

He’s seen the body, James realizes suddenly. He saw Sirius after. He saw whatever Effie keeps seeing that makes her lock herself in the shower for an hour each night after she gets home from wherever it is they’re keeping Sirius. She must think the water can cover her sobs, but James can still hear them. Can still feel them echo inside himself.

“You’re a coward,” Remus declares. Regulus pauses for a moment at the door, but he doesn’t deny it. He just breathes unevenly for a few seconds before exiting the compartment and walking unsteadily down the corridor.

“They’re guilty,” Remus announces as soon as he’s gone. “They’re guilty and the Ministry is going to try them for it. For killing him.” He looks about two seconds away from punching something. Remus’ knuckles are already scabbed over, but James isn’t sure he wants to find out why.

“There’s an investigation,” James confirms. “My mum is…she’s doing the autopsy.”

“They’re cutting him open?” Peter asks, heartbreakingly, and any remaining hope inside James scorches itself in a blinding burst of fire.

***

Lily, Mary, and Marlene slide the door open a bit later, filing in with forlorn faces and foggy eyes. 

“Can we sit here, with you?” Marlene asks, voice cracked.

James nods silently, and the girls glance at the unoccupied bench before curling up on the floor. Lily leans her head on Mary’s shoulder, closing her eyes. James knows she’s trying not to cry. Aren’t they all?

“Do you know anything?” Marlene continues.

Remus just shakes his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

The rest of the ride passes in silence.

***

There are still four beds in their dormitory. Remus stares at the pillow on the one in the far left corner of the room. Four months ago, Sirius was throwing that very pillow at James during their play fighting. Three weeks ago, Sirius was snogging Remus in that bed. Three days ago, Sirius was still alive.

Every time Remus thinks about him, pictures the small flecks of silver that seemed to illuminate Sirius’ eyes in the dark or recalls the way his hair looked like the waves of an ocean when it was messy and unkempt in the morning or imagines the sound of his laugh, boisterous and full with a deep, intense joy, he wants to rip apart the world at its seams. He wants to destroy everything because why should anyone else get to live in this world if Sirius Black doesn’t?

They all mill around the room, unpacking things without speaking. It’s awkward and it’s hurtful and Sirius would hate it, but he’s not here to do anything about it, so it doesn’t matter. Whatever once existed between them is gone forever. 

Hope had told him to lean on James and Peter, to grieve with them and carry that grief together. As if this would bring them closer. As if any good could come from this at all.

No, this isn’t going to bring them closer, it’s just going to push them further apart. Remus is certain of this. He’s going to be the one doing the pushing.

“That investigation is a sham,” he says suddenly, watching as James’ head swivels over to him at shocking speed. “What’s there to investigate?” he continues. “His parents killed him. And we all knew. We all saw the bruises and the limping and the nightmares and we did nothing.”

James looks away, hanging his head. 

“What could we have done?” Peter asks meekly, and Remus wants to slam him against the wall.

“Anything!” Remus shouts, rage like lightning crackling through him. “We could’ve told someone! We could’ve told Dumbledore or written to the Aurors! I could’ve pushed him to admit what was happening when he said he was fine and it was clearly bullshit! I could’ve done anything and I watched him get hurt and I watched him be stupid and reckless and now he’s gone and I’m never going to see him again!”

And then his fist is rearing back and he’s punching the wall and his knuckles are bleeding all over again and James is flinching at the impact and the noise and Remus doesn’t feel any better at all.

Because it’s his fault. And he’s to blame. Sirius is dead because everyone in the Gryffindor house of bravery and courage is really just a bloody coward, and Remus is the bloodiest of them all.

“I bet Regulus knows what happened,” he chokes out through tears that started at some point when he wasn’t aware. “But the little shit won’t say anything.”

“He loved Sirius, too,” James says quietly from the other side of the room, his eyes wide and just a bit frightened.

“He knew what they were doing,” Remus counters, “better than we did.”

And then he leaves the room before James or Peter can say anything else, stomping down to the Start-of-Term Feast that he’s been dreading for three days now.

***

Dumbledore gives a speech. Something stupid and sentimental about the impact Sirius had on all their lives, how dearly he will be missed, how the school will suspend classes for a day as a mourning period. 

A single fucking day. That’s all Sirius’ life amounts to. Remus could squeeze the life out of Dumbledore’s throat, could choke him with his bare palms until the steady, beating pulse beneath his thumbs eventually slows and ceases. 

He used to feel Sirius’ pulse against his, used to hear their hearts beating in tandem, fast and anxious and excited, limbs wrapping around each other in the safety of the night. A secret just for them. A feeling unmatched.

There was so much more they were supposed to discover together. So much faster their hearts were supposed to beat in sync.

This world could never allow what they had. It was never going to work anyway. They would’ve had to hide and sneak and lie their whole lives. 

But Remus would’ve done it. 

In a heartbeat.

***

McGonagall pulls the entire Gryffindor sixth year class into her office after the feast. They’re even now. Three boys and three girls. 

“Whatever you need,” she tells them. 

Remus needs the world to burn.

***

Effie writes to James a week into the term. The body has been released and they’re finally letting them have a funeral, but no one outside the Black family is allowed to attend. They haven’t even revealed the date or location. 

All Remus can see is Sirius’ still, frozen body buried beneath heaps of dirt, his porcelain skin cold to the touch. Sirius loved the stars. He loved flying up into the clouds, climbing higher and higher on his broom, fearless and daring.

And now he’s deep down in the earth, forever and ever.

The furthest he could be from the sky.

***

It’s Halloween, and Sirius is drunk. He’s warm and tingly and he’s already spilled a beer on himself. James is standing on top of the couch in the common room, belting out the wrong words to “Crocodile Rock” at the top of his lungs. Sirius cheers loudly, because that’s his best mate, and he’ll support him to the ends of the earth. And also, because he is very drunk.

The party has been going steady for a few hours, and most of the students are properly pissed by now. Remus is over by the alcohol, filling up his cup with something amber and fizzy. Sirius unabashedly watches the other boy’s back move as he twists from side to side, no doubt looking for Sirius himself.

When he spots him, he ambles over, plopping down next to him on the windowsill. Sirius tries to snatch the cup out of his hand and steal a sip, but Remus holds it out of reach.

“I think you’ve had enough,” he says, with a fond smirk on his lips.

Sirius pouts dramatically, sighing with his whole chest, but he lets it go, opting to rest his head on Remus’ shoulder instead. Remus glances around the room nervously.

He worries too much about someone catching them. As if anyone would believe Sirius Black, heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and notoriously pompous pureblood, was really a poof. It’s as ridiculous as people believing that calm, studious Remus is a part-time werewolf.

But Remus worries about all those things. And Sirius does too when he’s not drunk. But he is drunk. And it’s Halloween. And he wants to rest his head on Remus’ shoulder.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Remus says, dragging them both off the windowsill before Sirius can protest.

They stumble up the stairs and tumble into Remus’ bed. Remus is on top, looking down at Sirius with eyes of gold and red-flushed cheeks and Sirius knows this is as close as he’ll get to divinity.

“Kiss me?” he requests sweetly, and Remus laughs something wondrous before leaning down and indulging him.

After, when the sweat and endorphins have cleared some of the fog from the alcohol, Sirius nestles into Remus’ side, his eyelids heavy and drooping. They’ll have to clean up before James and Peter get back, but the music from the party is still blaring, so they should be safe for at least another half hour before someone realizes they’re missing and starts looking for them.

“I’ll never have enough time with you,” Sirius mumbles.

“What do you mean?” Remus asks, his voice husky and tired. It sounds like the crackle of a fireplace – soft and warm and comforting.

How could one lifetime suffice? Sirius thinks. This very moment could last for eons, and it still wouldn’t be enough. He and Remus aren’t lovers or boyfriends or anything as insignificant as that. This feels like destiny, like the only possible conclusion. Like every choice Sirius has ever made was always going to lead here, to Remus and his lanky legs and the freckles on the bridge of his nose and the way he sees Sirius in a light that not even Sirius can see himself in.

“Promise me that you’ll find me.”

“Find you where?”

“Everywhere.” In every lifetime.

“Sirius, is everything okay?” Concern leaks into Remus’ voice.

“Just promise me,” he begs.

Remus is quiet for a moment, and then he places a gentle kiss on Sirius’ head, one that Sirius can feel travel through him all the way to the tips of his fingers. They hold tighter onto Remus’ arm.

“I promise,” Remus agrees. “I promise I’ll find you.”

You already have, Sirius thinks.

Chapter Text

It’s the middle of the night, and James wants to go flying.

Over the past two weeks, he’s looked in every place he can think to – the Owlery in the early morning before classes begin, the tunnel to Hogsmeade on a Saturday afternoon, behind the greenhouses on a sunny day, the Gryffindor common room during a chilly evening, the Astronomy Tower at nightfall, the kitchens after a Quidditch match, the Room of Requirement right before curfew, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and the Transfiguration classroom and the Charms classroom and McGonagall’s office and the Forbidden Forest during a full moon.

Sirius isn’t anywhere. And Remus is paying for it with fresh, thick scars crisscrossing his chest, arms, and legs. The wolf doesn’t know how to handle its missing pack. None of them do.

So it’s nearly three in the morning, just about the time when Sirius took his last breath without knowing it was his last, and James needs to go flying.

He’s been playing Quidditch for Gryffindor, but he’s shit at it lately. Marlene is, too. All their marks are falling, except maybe Lily’s, who seems to be coping by locking herself in the library and crying herself to sleep each night, according to Mary, who looked like she’d been sharing in those tears.

James gets it. It’s not that they haven’t experienced death before, it’s just that death has never been so close. Or so young. Or so familiar. 

None of them know how to grieve this death. 

McGonagall seems to understand, too. James left half the questions blank on his last Transfiguration exam but still managed to scrape by with a passing mark. He keeps thinking of his mother and how she must be worrying and how they all definitely shouldn’t have returned to school this term, but he can’t leave now.

He hasn’t found Sirius yet. 

He slips under the invisibility cloak and tries to ignore the empty space that Sirius used to fill beneath it. He used to drag James out to the pitch on Sunday nights when the castle was asleep and the week was young and new. They’d fly up to the stars, side by side, but Sirius would always fly further. He wanted to touch them, wanted to feel them pulse in the palm of his hand, their extraordinary light sprinkling over him like shimmering hope. 

James would always complain, grumpy at being awoken so late even if he’d come to expect it. He’d grumble about the cold in the winter and the heat in the spring and he’d try to grab the hem of Sirius’ robes and yank him back down when he was flying too high.

Why did I do that? he thinks now, walking across the grounds. The earth is sodden from this afternoon’s rain, wet and caving beneath his feet, memorizing the outline of his shoes as they sink in. Trapping him here, earthbound. Why did I hold him back?

He lifts his eyes to the stars. He begs. He pleads. 

Let me find him. Let me find him up there.

But he never makes it to the pitch. Because there’s a silhouette by the Black Lake. One that matches its name.

Regulus glances back when he hears the approaching footsteps.

“Can’t talk to you,” he slurs when he sees it’s James.

He’s sitting on the grass, hunched over with his knees to his chest, an empty bottle discarded next to him and another grasped in his hand.

He’s drunk, James realizes. He walks closer to Regulus, folding the cloak in his hands and standing awkwardly next to him.

“Do you mind?” he asks, hesitantly.

Regulus just shrugs and takes another gulp from the bottle. James sets his broom aside and sits down on the grass, feeling as the mud immediately starts seeping through the fabric of his sweatpants.

“Still can’t talk to you,” Regulus repeats, glassy eyes looking into the water.

“I know,” James replies, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. Regulus is 15 years old. He still has baby fat on his cheeks. He still looks too much like Sirius.

He shouldn’t be drinking on a school night. He shouldn’t be drinking at all.

“We don’t have to talk about…” James trails off, swallowing awkwardly before beginning again. “I didn’t think you’d be back at school.”

“I couldn't be in their care while the investigation is active,” Regulus answers, voice flat. “The choices were my aunt and uncle or here.”

“From what Sirius told me, Alphard always seemed okay.”

Regulus laughs shakily. It sounds painful.

“He’s not who they meant.”

James’ eyebrows furrow for a moment before he understands.

“Bellatrix’s parents?” he asks with slight surprise. Bellatrix is a known Death Eater. Sirius once told James that he’d seen the Dark Mark on her arm.

“Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella.” The names come out bitter and harsh. Regulus swallows more of the amber liquid, coughing a bit once it goes down.

“Are they like your parents?” James asks, softly, tentatively.

Regulus doesn’t answer, eyes still watching the water. 

“When we were younger, like really young, our family used to drag us to this secluded beach in the south of France every summer. Us and Bellatrix and Narcissa and everyone. Sirius loved it – the water and the salt air and the space to run.”

All Regulus’ words are running together. James struggles to understand, but he’s hanging onto each one like the world depends on it. It feels like it does.

“I hated it. They would row us out on a boat and push me into the sea, watch me flailing around as the water got deeper and deeper and would laugh when it went in my ears and my mouth and up my nose.” He sniffles. “Sirius jumped in once, tried to pull me back to shore, away from the water and the taunts. Bellatrix jumped in after him, grabbed each of our legs and pulled us fully under the surface. Held us there until my lungs were burning for air.”

He stops to drink more, and James waits for him to continue but nothing comes.

“What happened next?” he prompts, gut going sour once more in anticipation.

“I learned to swim.”

When Regulus goes back to the bottle, it slips from his hand, falling with a thud in the grass and spilling onto the already damp ground. He makes a wounded noise and reaches for the empty glass, but James stills his hand with a gentle palm on Regulus’ forearm.

Regulus’ skin is warm and his eyes are confused and he looks like Sirius but he also looks different. His jaw isn’t as sharp, his eyes aren’t as bright, his mannerisms aren’t as certain.

James lets his palm linger. Regulus finally looks at him, looks into him. As if he can see beneath the flesh and the blood and the bones to James’ very soul. As if he can see the love wallowing there, curdling into grief and persisting stale and rancid for long after it’s welcome.

“He’s dead,” Regulus whispers, and it sounds like he’s revealing a secret. Like only he knows. Only he knows just how dead Sirius is.

James pulls away from him. He swallows harshly. 

“You should get back to the castle,” he says. “It’s not safe out, especially when you’re drunk.”

Regulus hums noncommittally, turning his head back to face the water.

James waits for a moment, but Regulus seems set on staying put.

“Fine,” he mumbles to himself, standing up and stepping forward to yank Regulus up by his armpits. Regulus yelps and stumbles over his own feet.

“Come on,” James instructs, “let’s get you to bed.”

He manages to keep Regulus relatively quiet and mostly concealed beneath the cloak as they trudge back across the grounds. Regulus is still wobbly on his feet, but James uses his broom handle as a sort of back brace to keep him upright.

They go as far as the door to the Slytherin common room. James figures that if Regulus passes out on the couch inside, or even on the floor, at least he’ll be safe from the elements and technically not breaking curfew.

But as he turns to leave, Regulus’ voice makes him freeze.

“He really loved you,” the younger boy tells him, sadness tinging the words. 

James tries to recapture the breath that has fled from him.

He turns back for a minute, sees the way Regulus’ face is crumbling, sees the teardrops balancing on the bottom of his eyelids.

He doesn’t think. He just sweeps forward and reaches out a thumb, wiping away the saline. It’s what Effie would do for him. It’s what he would do for Sirius.

Regulus lets it happen.

James’ hand falls back to his side.

“Goodnight, Regulus,” he says softly, and he slips away into invisibility.

***

This is nothing more than grief , James rationalizes as his heart beats too fast on the walk up to Gryffindor Tower. It’s just about closeness.

It’s about finding other people who knew Sirius, who maybe knew him differently, because Sirius wasn't the same person at school and at home. James didn't have enough time to know all of him, to know him fully, but he wants to. He’s searching for that.

Weeks pass, and James keeps running into Regulus, usually at night, and usually when the boy is drunk. He should tell someone about that – should find a way to get the other boy some help, but there are so many nights where James wishes he himself had the courage and the carelessness to lose himself in a bottle and forget the nightmare of life sans Sirius, and he can’t bear to take that comfort away from Regulus.

They usually sit in silence, or Regulus tells more odd childhood stories. Sometimes James touches his hand or rests his head on Regulus’ shoulder. Regulus always lets it happen. And James always ends up supporting him back to the dungeons, the other boy heavy-limbed and drowsy with booze.

Eventually James has to admit to himself that it’s not coincidence that keeps bringing them together. At some point, he stopped looking for Sirius, choosing to find his brother instead.

***

“Happy birthday to youuu!’

Hoots and hollers follow the song and Sirius laughs boisterously, sharing wide grins with James, Remus, and Peter. Mary bounces over to him on the couch, littering his face with kisses and he throws his palms up to shield himself, wiping the sticky lip gloss off his cheeks with his sleeves but secretly loving the affection.

The raucous party has been going for a few hours now, and Lily and Marlene are wheeling in a cake across the common room. Usually, they combine Sirius’ birthday party with the Halloween party, but he’d whinged to Remus about wanting his own time to shine this year and Remus had kissed the petulance off his lips before agreeing to convince Lily. Who said there aren’t perks to dating a prefect?

James plops down beside him, handing him a cup of firewhiskey.

“I see you got your birthday kisses,” he remarks, with a smug smile.

Sirius chugs the whole cup of alcohol before tossing it across the room at Remus’ head. He narrowly misses, and Remus turns around to glare at whoever threw it, but his face softens as soon as he sees it was Sirius.

“Don’t worry,” Sirius replies, eyes still on Remus, “I’ll get real ones later.” 

The words have barely left his mouth before his chest lurches painfully. Uh oh.

James jumps on the words. “What does that mean? Have you been seeing someone? Who is she? Is she in Gryffindor? Is she here now? Oh my gosh, is it Marlene?!”

There is no way in Merlin’s name that it could be Marlene. Sirius makes that clear with the expression on his face.

“Fine,” James huffs, “keep your secrets.”

He turns to watch Peter and Lily argue over how to place the candles on the cake. Based on hand gestures, Lily wants them to form a “16” whereas Peter is going for a more abstract, decorative arrangement.

“Really though,” James says, calmer now, “will you just tell me if you're seeing someone or not?”

Sirius sighs. He wishes he could just say yes. He wishes he could tell James he’s dating some bird in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff with long, curly hair and round, doe-like eyes. He wishes he liked that sort of thing.

He also wishes he could just tell James it’s Remus. It’s not that he doesn’t trust James – he trusts him with his very soul – it’s just that Sirius doesn’t know if he’s ready to admit that yet. What he and Remus have is all theirs. If no one else knows, no one else can touch it.

That’s what Sirius wants. Something untouchable. Something unbreakable.

“Okay okay, fine,” James relents when Sirius doesn’t reply. “But if you are, just…are you happy?”

Sirius thinks of Remus, of the soft moments and the gentleness, of the jokes and the teasing, of the arguments and the passion that only makes it all more exhilarating. 

“Yeah,” he breathes, “I’m happy.”

“You’re grinning like a fool,” James counters, knocking him with his shoulder.

Sirius laughs. “Enough about me. Are you getting any?”

“You know I’d tell you if I was.” 

Across the room, Lily seems to have won the candle battle, meticulously forming the numbers while Peter frowns grumpily behind her, his arms crossed.

“What about Lily?” Sirius asks. “You used to have a huge crush on her.”

What he means by that is that, from second through fifth year, James would not shut up about every tiny action Lily Evans took. If she flipped her ginger hair over her shoulder, James would giggle uncontrollably. If she agreed to study for a test with him, he’d force Sirius to stay up all night reviewing every phrase she said to him and trying to decode them for hidden meanings.

James shrugs. “She’s really great – smart and sharp and witty. And super pretty. And she’s also extremely not into me.” He laughs lightly.

“How do you know that?”

James’ face turns cherry red.

“She told me,” he mumbles.

“What? When?” Sirius asks, shocked at this development.

“When I asked her out,” James supplies.

“What?! When?!” Sirius asks louder, and a few heads turn their way in concern.

“Shh,” James shushes him.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Sirius complains. There’s a tiny twinge of hurt that twists deep down inside him. He and James don’t keep secrets. Well, Sirius keeps secrets. About Remus and his parents and the bruises James sometimes notices tainting his skin. 

But those are necessary secrets. And James doesn’t have necessary secrets. He’s always been an open book, always worn his heart on his sleeve, and viewed the world and his friends with honest eyes. It’s something that initially drew Sirius to him so strongly. James had a confidence to tell the truth that Sirius had never been afforded.

“Calm down, drama king,” James goads, and Sirius sticks his tongue out at him. James sticks his out right back. “I know because I asked her out this morning. I wanted her to go with me to this party. As a…as a couple, I guess.” 

He’s blushing again, and it’s cute. Sirius smirks at him.

“I can’t believe you’d have the audacity to make my birthday all about your crush,” he says, mock-affronted.

James rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning again.

He loves me, Sirius thinks.

“I’m going to ask Lily to dance,” Sirius smiles, standing up from the couch.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” James protests. “Of course she’s going to say yes to you. It’s your birthday!”

Sirius just sticks his tongue out again, already sauntering across the room.

Chapter Text

It’s a Hogsmeade Saturday in early February, but James and Remus have been detained in the castle, told briefly by Dumbledore that an Auror needs to ask them a few questions for the investigation.

Not that Remus would even want to go to Hogsmeade. All the other students ever do is laugh with their friends and drink butterbeers in the Three Broomsticks and forget that Sirius ever existed.

Nothing is fun without him. Nothing means anything if Sirius isn’t here to experience it with him.

Apparently McGonagall has volunteered her office as a makeshift interrogation room.

“This won’t take long,” the Auror tells him. They’ve called his mum to sit in the interview with him. It’s probably some sort of violation if they question a minor without a parent present, Remus figures. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the man adds, as an afterthought. He looks suspiciously young but understandably tired. Remus has never spoken to an Auror before. Never met one. They only handle really dark magic – the most awful, unspeakable kinds.

They must’ve done terrible things to Sirius. 

“Yeah, fine, just get on with it,” Remus snaps, angry all over again. He can’t seem to feel any other way these days.

He doesn’t want to be here – in this room, in this castle, in this life. Ever since rumors of the investigation spread, everyone in the school has been mumbling about justice. About finding blame and locking someone up in Azkaban and calling the whole thing done.

As if it could ever be over. There is no justice. There is no way to make this right. 

Sirius will never be alive again. Remus could answer all the questions in the world and none of it would mean anything.

The Auror clears his throat awkwardly.

“Er, right then. Did Sirius ever speak to you about his home life?”

Remus’ fingernails dig into the palms of his hands as he squeezes his aggression into his fists.

“If you’re asking if they hurt him, yes. His parents beat him and abused him and now they’ve killed him.” His voice is scorching, flames skidding over McGonagall’s desk as he speaks.

Hope puts a calming hand on his arm but he shakes it off.

“Do you have proof of that Mr. Lupin? That’s a serious allegation.”

Remus bolts up out of his chair, gesturing wildly as he speaks.

“He had bruises. All the time. Nightmares where he’d wake up screaming and sobbing. There was blood on his sheets once. Is that not enough for you?”

The Auror shoots a disapproving look at Hope, who glares right back at him.

The Auror huffs. “How do you know it was his parents?”

“Who else could it have been?!” Remus shouts.

“Mr. Lupin,” the Auror begins condescendingly.

Remus lunges across the table at him, and Hope has to drag him back, using all her might to force him across the office and out through the door.

“We’re not done yet!” the Auror calls as they exit.

“I think you’ve done quite enough,” Hope snaps disapprovingly as Remus stumbles down the corridor, feeling as though someone replaced his blood with gasoline and made his beating heart a match.

***

“He was hurt sometimes,” James tells the Auror. “But he wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Did he ever say who hurt him?” the man prompts.

“He wouldn’t talk about it,” James repeats, voice cracking. He turns to Effie, persistent tears returning yet again to his puffy eyes. 

“Why wouldn’t he talk about it?” he asks, begging her for an answer she can’t give. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

***

Regulus hasn’t spent much time in McGonagall’s office. It’s…cozy. There are potted plants lounging across the windowsills, natural light spilling in above their tendrils to coat the room in a gentle glow.

It’s too bright. Perhaps this was an accurate choice for an interrogation room. Regulus prefers the darkness of the dungeons or Grimmauld Place. Feels like home.

“I spoke with your cousin Andromeda,” the Auror starts.

“She’s not my cousin,” Regulus says automatically. Not since they burned her off the tapestry.  

The Auror looks confused but doesn’t push the matter. 

“Well, she stated that there was a history of abuse in the Black family.”

A sharp ache stabs into Regulus’ ribs. He glances to the man sitting beside him, his so-called solicitor, Rabastan Lestrange. Bellatrix’s brother-in-law. The Dark Lord's current favorite Death Eater who moonlights as a lawyer. One who lives in his parents’ pocket. One who will undoubtedly report everything he says in this interview back to them.

Rabastan nods his permission, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. This is fun for him. Death is always fun for him.

Regulus tries to think of a way to answer the question without lying or telling the truth.

“My parents disciplined us,” he settles on, keeping his voice vacant. He will not let his own body betray his true feelings. He will not let his own words strangle him.

“Did it ever cross a line?”

There is no line , Regulus thinks. There’s never been a line.

“Sirius tended to push their buttons,” he says instead, and he thinks of the crack and the blood and the stillness of Sirius’ body. And he aches.

“Did they hurt him for it?”

Sirius was the first one who told him that all the shouting and the hitting and the curses weren’t normal. That most families didn’t do that. Regulus hadn’t known that.

“You’ll have to ask him,” he replies, before he realizes that that’s impossible now, and then his lungs collapse within him and it hurts. The Auror gives him an odd look, and Regulus lowers his eyes to the cluttered desk.

The questions continue: Did you ever see bruises on your brother? Did you ever witness your parents use an Unforgivable Curse? Did your parents ever hurt you? 

Most of them Rabastan tells him not to answer. A few he allows him to, and it feels like it did when Bellatrix dragged him under the water in that ocean. The whole world is watching him splash among the waves, trying to keep his head above the salt, and it just keeps pulling and pulling. Sirius isn’t here anymore to try to save him. The sea already swallowed his brother whole.

“What happened the night Sirius died?”

It is as if someone has shocked him with a stunning spell.

Regulus looks to Rabastan desperately, praying for a shake of his head, but instead he receives a grinning nod. Rabastan is handing him a length of rope. It is up to Regulus whether he hangs himself or not. 

He swallows once, twice. He begs his body to breathe. He stares at the sunlight in the window, wishes for it to blind him. 

Anything but this.

“He was arguing with my parents. I was sleeping in my bedroom. The shouting woke me up so I went downstairs to see what was happening. They were in the library. Their wands were out. They were using…”

“We found the Cruciatus Curse on their wands,” the Auror supplies. “Both of them.”

Regulus is crumbling bones and ragged skin. Dust and ash.

He glances at Rabastan again, but the man just nods once more, smile even bigger and more amused.

Apparently his parents have decided not to hide their crime. He hasn't been fully read into the defense strategy, but it seems as if they plan to tell it like it happened, to an extent, and somehow get the Wizengamot to agree that their actions were necessary.

To agree that killing his brother was necessary. That Sirius’ death had to happen.

There’s an exemption for that. “Extenuating Circumstances.” Unforgivables become forgivable. 

Sirius’ death becomes justified.

“What was the argument about?”

“I don’t know,” Regulus lies. “It was over by the time I got to the library. They were already using the curse.”

“Did you see Sirius attack your parents?”

“No. By the time I got there, they were already the ones cursing him .”

Rabastan puts a hand on Regulus’ shoulder. The fingers squeeze painfully. Regulus swallows back his emotions once more.

“All right.” The Auror writes down a note on his parchment. “What happened after that?”

There’s a half dozen full bottles of malt whiskey left under the bed in Regulus’ dormitory right now. It’s high quality stuff – the kind he stole from his parents’ collection this past summer before school began again. It was supposed to last him the whole year, one bottle for every party they would throw in the common room.

When he gets out of this office, he’s going to drink half of his supply in one go. It’s the quickest way to reach oblivion. Even brewing a potion takes too long these days.

Besides, James Potter will probably find him, clean him up, and get him to bed. Wipe his tears away. Make him feel human for a few fleeting moments before he returns to his natural marionette state.

“He was spasming from the curse. He fell to the floor, between the bookshelves, and his limbs were flailing into them, banging against them. He was screaming and they kept repeating the curse and he kept flailing. And then his head hit the side of one of the bookshelves really hard and there was a really loud crack and then there was a lot of blood and then he just stopped moving.”

Regulus feels Rabastan’s hand on his shoulder, lets the pain of it ground him, forces the hurt to drive away the nausea and the suffocation and the despair.

“He wasn’t moving at all,” Regulus whispers.

“Did anyone try to heal him?” the Auror asks.

“I checked his pulse.” He made me, Regulus thinks, his father’s voice echoing in his head as if he were in the room with them at this very moment. “He was gone. I think he went instantly.”

I think the last thing he ever felt was pain.

***

They lost. To Slytherin. Again.

Sirius is sullenly washing his hair in the showers of the Gryffindor Quidditch changing room, tugging at knots to release his frustration. It’s not fair – Slytherin never plays by the rules, always being unnecessarily rough and ignoring Madam Hooch’s whistles of protest. Sirius tries to give it right back to them, aiming Bludgers as violently as he can, but the tossers always manage to dart away at the last second. 

His brother especially has always been good at avoiding the hits. 

“I’m going back to the castle, slowcoach!” James calls to him. “Try not to drown in there.”

“Wanker!” Sirius calls back.

By the time he exits the shower, the whole changing room has cleared, and the afternoon light outside has started to dim. There will be no celebrations tonight, no firewhiskey and drunken kisses and jumping on armchairs with James. 

There will be complaining, though. Marlene will say Slytherin cheated and James will accuse Madam Hooch of playing favorites and Peter will assure them that if the game were fair, Gryffindor obviously would’ve won.

And Sirius will agree. It’s the same conversation they have every time that pureblood privilege roars its powerful head, granting favor to the obedient children of nobility and snubbing those who dare to defect. 

It’s getting a bit tiring, though. Maybe the Slytherin team really is better than them this year, or maybe they just seem better because their families can afford to buy them better brooms. Maybe the players are really good at avoiding Bludgers or maybe Sirius’ aim is off because his shoulder has never felt quite right since Orion bruised it this summer. Maybe nothing in the world is fair at all or maybe Sirius just makes things more difficult for himself by not falling in line like he’s supposed to. Like he easily could.

He dries his hair with a flannel and changes into jeans, enjoying the solitude of the moment. When he looks back up from closing his locker, Regulus is standing in the doorway, looking uncomfortable.

This ought to be good, Sirius thinks, already feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise. 

He and his brother don’t have casual chats. Whatever this is, it doesn’t bode well.

“Good game,” Regulus says awkwardly.

It was anything but, but Sirius just clicks his tongue and looks away, crossing his arms over his chest as if to protect himself from the bullshit.

Some people think Sirius hates his brother. Mostly Remus. And probably sometimes Regulus, too. 

But it’s not that simple. Sirius and Regulus depend on each other during the summer and on holidays. It’s a survival mechanism. In that house, they have to be allies because they have a common enemy. Sirius can’t care about the way Regulus uses slurs or despises Muggleborns or adopts the same hateful views their parents spew. In that house, Regulus is his little brother, and it is Sirius’ job to protect him.

But here, in the safety and freedom of Hogwarts, Sirius’ feelings about his brother can be more nuanced. 

And right now, he doesn’t trust him.

“We lost,” Sirius replies, sourly.

“Oh, come on,” Regulus says, his mouth smirking with something not quite cruel but not quite playful either. Sirius stiffens. “It’s not all bad. Your boyfriend couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

Regulus and his fucking ulterior motives.

Sirius is aflame at once, panic like lava gushing over him, burning and charring until the air is filled with a thick, suffocating smoke. He looks rapidly around the room, not even sure what he’s searching for. James to rescue him? His parents to curse him on the spot?

Fear is rolling off of him like sweat, cold and dripping, but there’s something deeper too. Shame, and guilt, and a bit of self-hatred. 

“I don’t have a –” he denies, hating how his voice sounds so desperate. “How could you even think that? That’s disgusting! It’s unnatural!” 

The self-hatred intensifies when he realizes that he really means it, too. 

How could he have been so stupid? How could he have let his gross, shameful desires overwhelm his logical senses? They’re going to crucify him for this. They’re going to burn him alive, and when he feels the fire on his skin, he will know, finally, that it is fair. That it is deserved.

“Anyone could see it in the way that you look at Lupin,” Regulus says casually, as if the room isn’t ablaze around them. “Besides,” he shrugs, “aren’t all us Blacks fucked up a little bit?”

“I’m not,” Sirius insists. “I swear I’m not.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone.” Regulus’ voice sounds genuine. His face shifts with the words, and he looks younger somehow and confused, as if this isn’t as fun as he expected it to be. “But it’s never going to work out,” he adds. “They’d never let you be that way.”

Sirius backs against the wall, feels the door of the locker dig into his back and uses the pressure of it to keep his mind from giving into the swirling haze of alarm. His throat is clogged with ash, his lungs tarred and black.

“I’m not, ” he repeats, emphatically.

Regulus’ smirk falls back into place.

“Look, have your fun at school, but soon enough you're going to have to face up to the real world.”

Sirius doesn’t know where the strength comes from. He never does in these moments. But sometimes, when his back is against the wall – quite literally in this case – he gets a jolt of energy, as if someone, somewhere, wants him to fight back. It makes him do crazy things, like try to grab Orion’s wand out of his hand as he’s shooting a curse or dive over the banister headfirst after he struggles out of Walburga’s grip on the staircase.

Or lunge forward and punch Regulus, square in the jaw. Regulus stumbles backwards, nearly falling over, his eyes wide and shocked. His hands leap up to his mouth where blood-soaked spit is dripping freely down to his chin. 

Sirius stares at him, breathing rapidly. The smoke starts to recede, and the panic calms to an eerie static. Regulus stares right back at him.

This isn’t unusual. Sirius has hit Regulus plenty of times before. He always throws the first punch. Regulus’ moves are mostly defensive.

They watch each other, and Sirius knows Regulus won’t hit him back. It’s the one part of Sirius that’s just like his parents, and the one part of Regulus that’s anything but. Sirius understands the violence in a way his brother never could. Sirius aims the Bludgers, and Regulus ducks. Sirius throws the punches and Regulus bleeds.

Sirius fights against their parents while Regulus falls in line with an easy subservience, but Sirius supposes there are still a few lines of Regulus’ own that his brother refuses to cross.

The shock on Regulus’ face dissipates, and he offers Sirius a wide, bloody smile, teeth shiny red, before he slips out of the doorway.

Chapter Text

The trial begins on a blustery morning in March. It’s expected to last a few days, and the Gryffindor sixth year class is excused from classes during its duration. None of them are called to testify – James supposes they didn’t provide any information the Aurors didn’t already know during questioning – but he watched as Effie put on her finest robes that morning, combing and recombing her hair even after it looked perfect.

The courtroom in the Ministry is freezing, and they all pack into a bench on the side of the room, James’ right knee touching Peter’s and his left touching Remus’.

Remus won’t talk to them much, waking up early and going to bed late, spending hours outside on the grounds doing Merlin knows what. And when he does talk, it’s usually in anger, with thick undertones of guilt.

It’s as if Sirius was the glue holding them all together. Now that he’s gone, James isn’t sure any of them were ever really friends. 

James is still a bit surprised to see Dumbledore perched at the front of the Wizengamot, his plum robes and foremost position announcing him as Chief Warlock. Effie had told James what to expect from today – barristers and testimonies and Dumbledore presiding over it all – but it all still feels so cold and clinical. 

James takes a deep breath, trying to convince himself that he can sit in this courtroom and hear the details of Sirius’ demise without losing the contents of his stomach again. They’ve been waiting for this for months – aching to know what really happened that night, how Sirius felt, if he suffered in those last moments – and now that it’s finally here, James just feels lost all over again.

He is soothed only by the fact that Dumbledore is in charge here. He knew Sirius. He’ll do right by him.

Some Ministry barrister in deep blue robes is representing the prosecution, and he marches into the room in loud, clacking shoes, carrying a stack of parchment in his arms. They can’t use Veritaserum, Effie told him, because some people can resist its effects and still lie. And they can’t retrieve a memory from a witness and watch it in a Pensieve because memories can be tampered with. So they just have to ask questions. Dozens of questions. And hope that somewhere in those answers are the seeds of justice.

The courtroom is fairly barren. Most students weren’t excused from classes to watch the trial. And none of the witnesses can observe the other testimonies.

Which means James is going to have to face this on his own. He wishes Sirius were next to him.

And then he realizes that none of this would be happening if Sirius were still next to him, alive and unharmed, and the pain of that nearly makes him double over in his seat.

“What’s wrong?” Remus asks sharply when James whimpers, as if they aren’t at the trial of their best friend’s murder. All James can do is whimper again. Remus watches him for a moment longer, a silent battle seeming to play out in his mind.

“Azkaban will never be enough,” Remus mutters under his breath, tone dark as he finally looks away from James and refocuses on the newest figure waltzing into the courtroom.

Rabastan Lestrange. That’s who the Black family has chosen to represent themselves.

Monty swears he has a Dark Mark on his arm. Effie said he’s related to Bellatrix. Sirius hated Bellatrix. James wonders if they did it on purpose. One last fuck you to innocent sixteen year old they stole the life from.

Rabastan nods at Narcissa, who’s sitting alone on a bench on the other side of the room, mirroring James’. She just stares blankly back at him. The rest of her family is testifying, James knows. She looks small and lost, and it makes him think of Regulus, and how he’ll be reliving whatever he saw that night in just a few days in this frozen, barren, hopeless room without any view of the sun.

If James can’t have Sirius next to him, he wishes Regulus was. If only to comfort the younger boy. If only to give him the care he no longer has any other place to put.

Opening statements pass in a haze of strong words and thinly veiled accusations. And then the first witness is being called and McGonagall is sitting down in the looming wooden chair with eyes that are trying to be stern but are missing it by miles, their red-rimmed waterlines betraying the truth of the situation.

“How did you find out Sirius Black had died?” the barrister asks.

“I received an owl from the Ministry. The Aurors said that an Unforgivable Curse had been used at the Black residence.”

“And when you arrived at that residence, what did you see?”

McGonagall doesn’t answer right away. She looks up at the ceiling, blinking a few times as if she’s willing away tears, before looking back down, face now hardened resolutely.

“I saw Sirius Black’s body mangled and bleeding on the floor of the library. His parents, Walburga and Orion, were waiting calmly at the front door.”

“Had you seen injuries on Sirius previously during his time at school?”

“A few times at the start of term I saw some bruises on his arms. He would limp occasionally, or have nightmares. He was often unfocused for the first week or two of classes. But he hid all of it very well.”

“And you never reported these injuries to anyone?”

McGonagall looks to the floor this time, and James’ stomach twists painfully. It’s odd to see someone as intimidating and admirable as her look so ashamed.

“I should’ve talked to him. I should’ve confronted him about it. But I…I never had any proof. I thought I was exaggerating it.”

When she looks back up, the tears are back in her eyes. James didn’t think it was possible for her to cry.

“And I didn’t want to make things more difficult for him,” she finishes quietly.

James expects them to ask Dumbledore similar questions, but apparently, as Chief Warlock, he doesn't have to testify.

“What did you determine the cause of death to be?” the barrister asks Madam Pomfrey.

“A skull fracture from blunt force trauma. Due to its severity, he would’ve died very quickly.”

“Did you discover anything else during the autopsy?” he asks Effie.

“He had bruises and lacerations from head to toe. We found many old scars, some dating back more than a decade, mostly concentrated on his lower back and legs. Some from Muggle instruments, and some from spells. He had bones that had healed incorrectly in his fingers, as if they had been broken but never properly mended.”

“Was Sirius a difficult child?” Rabastan asks.

“Most definitely. He was always strong-willed and defiant,” Cygnus replies.

“Oh yes. He resisted any orders he was given and outright refused to behave politely or respectfully,” Druella confirms.

“He was insane,” Bellatrix says sweetly, blinking her wide eyes as if this is a game show and not a trial. “Honestly it was scary sometimes, how out of control he’d get. I was afraid of him. Especially when he became violent.”

“Do you believe Walburga and Orion physically abused Sirius?” the barrister asks.

“I know they did,” Andromeda answers. “I saw them use stunning spells and cutting spells on him. The whole family enjoyed those. Real popular with the Blacks.” She pulls down the top of her robes to reveal a long, white scar beneath her collarbone. “They used them on me, too.” She pauses for a moment, glancing over to Narcissa. “And my sisters,” she says quietly.

“Our own parents used curses to discipline my sister and I,” Alphard replies. “I suspected Walburga might be using them on my nephews. It’s a…a family tradition,” he says with disgust.

“When you checked the spells on Walburga and Orion’s wands after apprehending them at the Black residence early that morning, what did you find?” the barrister asks.

“The Cruciatus Curse,” the Auror replies. “On both of them.”

***

When court ends for the day, James makes a beeline for the bathroom. He’s been swallowing down hot bile all afternoon and it’s about to come back up.

A skull fracture.

Bones that had healed incorrectly in his fingers.

Sirius Black’s body mangled and bleeding.

The Cruciatus Curse. On both of them.

They hadn’t even tried to hide it! his brain shouts at him. They hadn’t even tried to cover it up.

There’s a bored-looking Auror idling outside of the bathroom and James stumbles inside without even looking, rushing into a stall and quickly losing his lunch into the toilet. It reminds him of when he first found out Sirius was dead. The acid burns his throat the same way, and it feels like cruel laughter as it ghosts over his windpipe.

He sits there for a few seconds, breathing unevenly and feeling the cold floor beneath him.

And then he hears the laughter. 

His neck whips around and there is Regulus, flask in his hand and drunken grin on his face. He’s giggling. As if anything could possibly be funny about this.

“What the hell, Regulus!” James snaps, getting to his feet as fast as he can and pushing past the younger boy to rinse out his mouth with water.

“Bad day, huh?” Regulus slurs. “They won’t let me watch any of it. Have to wait until I testify. Don’t want me tainted.” He giggles some more and wiggles his fingers at the word “tainted.”

“They’re keeping us in separate rooms,” he continues, stumbling closer to James, who’s watching him warily as he leans against the sink. “I even have a guard,” he whispers loudly, which explains the Auror outside. Regulus takes another swig from the flask. “But I needed some air.”

“And some alcohol,” James mutters, before yanking his wand out of his pocket and casting a silencing spell. The underage magic won't be detected as easily here in the Ministry with so many other spells going on. “There’s an Auror right outside,” James reprimands, looking pointedly at the flask.

“What are they going to do?” Regulus challenges, eyes narrowing. “Kill me?” He laughs too loudly. “They’ve already lost one heir. Not going to risk another.”

“Regulus, this is serious!”

“Sirius is dead,” Regulus replies soberly, all sense of humor gone in an instant. James clutches the porcelain of the sink tightly.

“I mean the drinking. This isn’t healthy. This isn't helping.”

“How would you know?” Regulus replies petulantly, and it sounds so much like Sirius that James wants to rush forward and wrap Regulus up in his arms, shielding him from every bad thing in this cursed, broken world.

Instead, he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and tries to push away the repeating images of Sirius’ mangled, bloody body that his brain keeps conjuring up.

“I know it hurts. I know it’s unbearable. And I know the alcohol takes away that pain for a while, but it’s only temporary. It won’t work forever. And when it stops working, it’ll be worse.” 

Regulus seems to finally be paying attention.

“And it’s not safe!” James continues. “You’re going to hurt yourself when it’s dark outside and you're too drunk to stand up straight and I’m not there to carry you back.”

Regulus gives him an odd look, like a mix between confusion and admiration and discomfort.

“ Please,” James begs, because he can’t have anyone else around him be not okay right now. “Regulus, I don't want you to get hurt. I –”

Before he can finish, Regulus is closing the gap between them and pressing his liquor-coated lips onto James’. It’s sudden and it’s frightening and James’ heart is going to physically beat out of his chest.

And it’s wrong. It’s all wrong. He’s not supposed to be kissing Regulus. This is a line he never meant to cross. But now Regulus is crossing it for him, pushing him back further against the sink and weaving his fists into James’ robes as if he’s never going to let go.

And then, in what must be a mere second but feels like an eon, the door to the bathroom swings open and Remus stops in his tracks, his eyes getting wide and then narrowing once more, his expression turning stormier and stormier.

James pushes Regulus off of him, not even feeling guilty when the other boy stumbles backwards violently, nearly losing his balance. It takes Regulus’ alcohol-addled brain a moment to comprehend what’s happening, but as soon as he takes in the expression on Remus’ face, he bolts from the room, leaving James alone to face whatever wrath is about to be unleashed.

***

“All right,” Remus says matter-of-factly as he barges into the bathroom. Sirius is wearing only a towel around his waist, frantically brushing his wet hair. He’s already late for class, having slept straight through breakfast, and he’s surprised that Remus isn’t already sitting in Transfiguration, chatting with Lily. “Out with it.”

“Out with what?!” He asks indignantly. “You get out!”

Remus just crosses his arms, taking a moment to trail his eyes down Sirius’ bare chest. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“No I haven't,” Sirius replies immediately, tugging a vest over his head and ignoring the way his face flushes in the mirror before him.

“Not to be crude, but you haven't slept in my bed even once this week.”

“James has been sleeping lightly the past few nights,” Sirius argues.

“That's never stopped you before.” Remus has this irksome smirk on his mouth, like this is some sort of twisted game that he’s determined to win.

Sirius looks away from Remus’ stupid, golden eyes and bites his lip to stifle all the words he wishes he could scream out. It’s always been so easy for Remus. He’s always been so confident about this part of who he is. Accepting. As if he understands that he can’t change this aspect of himself – the part that wants Sirius, that wants boys instead of girls. 

Sirius doesn’t even think Remus wants to change it. Doesn’t think he would if he could.

And it’s not fair. Because Remus is everything Sirius has ever wanted, but he is also simultaneously the thing that reminds Sirius of all his shame. Remus feels holy to him. And that makes Sirius feel blasphemous.

“Hey,” Remus calls softly, moving forward to brush a gentle hand along Sirius’ cheek. “Whatever it is, it’s okay. If you don't want to do that anymore, that's fine. I'm not trying to pressure you.”

“Of course I want to do that,” Sirius snaps out in frustration.

It’s just not safe. Not when Regulus knows. Not when anyone could find out. Not when his parents could find out. They'd hurt Remus. They'd hurt Sirius, but they'd hurt Remus too, and that's truly what scares him, more than his own wellbeing.

Anyone could tell by the way you look at Lupin, his brother had said. So he hasn’t been looking at him. Or talking to him. Or standing near him. And it’s been awful and lonely.

“I want to be with you, Sirius,” Remus tells him now.

“I know,” he whispers. He doesn’t say it back.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Sirius considers it for a moment. What could he even say? My brother knows about us. He knows I’m…And also I hate myself for that. You know, because it’s unnatural and shameful and disgusting. Because you’re unnatural and shameful and disgusting.

Except Remus isn’t. Not at all. It’s only Sirius who is that way. Like dirt on the bottom of his father’s polished shoe.

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

What’s one more secret?

Chapter Text

Remus sees red. He’s been angry lately, he knows, the guilt and self-blame from Sirius’ death piercing painful needles into his sides until he’s in constant agony, those awful pinpricks and the fresh wounds each month from the wolf’s own grief combining to form one super-misery that’s been making rage the only understandable emotion to him. 

But this anger is different. This anger isn’t rooted in self-contempt and hopeless mourning. This anger is purposeful. Targeted. 

James is standing in front of him, cowering like the coward he is. Everyone processes grief differently, Hope had told Remus when he’d plucked up the energy to write her a letter. And then a second one where he apologized for being so curt in the first one. 

But this isn’t James processing grief. This isn’t even Regulus processing grief. This is both of them, betraying Sirius in the worst way possible. 

And Remus should’ve expected this from Regulus, the little snake. 

But James. Oh, James.

“He’s a blood supremacist!” Remus finds himself shouting at the other boy.

James lurches backwards as if he’s been physically hit.

“He just lost his brother,” he manages to argue back.

“He knew about the abuse!” Remus fumes. “He knew about it all! He knows what happened and he wouldn’t tell us!”

“He’s not allowed to!” James screams back.

“And who do you think he’s protecting? Huh?”

“He’s going to testify.”

“And you think he’s going to tell the truth?” Remus laughs incredulously.

James has always seen the best in people. Sirius was an arrogant, self-important egomaniac and Remus was a violent, dangerous werewolf, and James saw both of them and decided that these were the people he should befriend. Remus used to admire that in James – his open-mindedness, his disregard of others’ judgements.

But this. This is too far. There is nothing redeemable about Regulus.

“Sirius would’ve hated you for this,” he tells James, and watches with a sick sense of satisfaction at the reaction it gets. The color drains from James’ face as his shoulders slump deeply. He deflates like a balloon.

“For…for kissing a boy?” he asks in a small voice, and then the satisfaction transforms into a blinding ache, like someone is stabbing Remus from the inside out.

He laughs again, but it turns into a strangled sob.

“Of course not!” His voice is panicked, urgent. “You could've kissed a million boys and that never would’ve mattered.”

Now James gives him an odd look, like he can’t figure out why Remus isn’t upset about that part of this whole messed up scenario, and the knife inside Remus plunges harder. He grits his teeth and steels his nerves.

“But this is Regulus,” he continues, calmer now. “And he hated Regulus.”

“He never did,” James replies weakly.

“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought.” It comes out cold. Remus is okay with that.

“Maybe you didn’t.” James’ shoulders draw back up. His eyes harden.

“You’ve just betrayed him, James. I know that .”

***

The next day in the courtroom, Remus spreads his long limbs across the bench, taking up the space of two seats. Everyone else piles in next to him, except James, who is relegated to the only other available bench: the one on which Narcissa is sitting stiffly, still looking so lost and even more alone. 

When James plops down on the other end of the bench, Narcissa spares him one quick glance, consisting of a faint look of surprise followed by a momentary flash of fear. And then there is nothing but a clean slate on her face. She doesn’t acknowledge him the rest of the morning.

“When you searched the house,” the barrister begins, addressing the young-looking Auror that had questioned them all at Hogwarts, “did you find anything of interest?”

“There were some…implements. Fire pokers, a few of Orion’s belts. They had traces of dried blood on them. Sirius’ blood.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. A trunk. Monogrammed with the initials S.O.B. It was lying on the other side of the library, across the room from the body. It was fully packed. There were clothes, school books, some small parcels of food. And the boy’s wand. Stuffed under layers of clothes.”

“What was the last spell that had been cast on that wand?”

“A healing spell.”

***

When the trial breaks for lunch, James slips on his invisibility cloak, sneaking down Ministry hallways until he finds the witness rooms. He recognizes the Auror who was waiting outside the bathroom as the man stands beside a nondescript door, looking bored out of his mind.

James backs down the hallway and around the corner, grabs his wand, and Accio’s the Auror’s belt from under his robes. As the Auror goes racing by James to search for the culprit, hands yanking desperately to hold up his falling trousers, James uses Alohomora on the door to the witness room and slips inside, casting a silencing spell immediately.

He takes a second to breathe before turning around to face Regulus. He’s going to ask about the trunk. And only the trunk. Why was it packed? Why did Sirius put his wand inside it instead of using it to defend himself? Was Sirius planning to leave that night? Where was he going to go? Why didn’t he tell anyone?

James wants answers to those questions. That’s all.

He shrugs off his cloak. He turns around. He opens his mouth.

“Why did you kiss me?”

***

James sounds angry. Regulus supposes he has a right to be.

Regulus knew it would come to this sooner or later. As soon as Lupin walked into that room, whatever ridiculous fantasies Regulus had been indulging were proven to be just that – fantasies.

Why had he kissed James? What a ridiculous question. Isn’t it obvious?

Because James cared about him, or at least made it seem like he did.

Because Regulus wanted to kiss a boy, just once, before he’d never be able to again.

Because aren’t all the Blacks fucked up a little bit?

Because Sirius loved James. Really loved him. And James loved Sirius right back. And Regulus wanted to know, just for an instant, what it feels like to be loved like that.

Because he was drunk. And death and grief and liquid courage all conspired behind his back to trick him into thinking that just this once he could get what he wanted. That just this once, something good had to come after the bad.

But there’s never any good. It’s always just bad, and then more bad.

“We can’t be seen together,” he replies, ignoring James’ question completely. He doubts Lupin will share what he saw in the bathroom – both out of loyalty to James and because if he tries, Regulus will blackmail him with the same information he holds about Lupin and Sirius’ relationship – but it’s still best to be prudent. If one person found out, then anyone can. 

“Why did you kiss me?” James repeats, refusing to let it go.

Regulus resists the urge to roll his eyes. His fingers itch towards the flask up his sleeve.

“Because I was drunk.” 

James doesn’t seem satisfied with that answer, but he doesn’t press it.

“Do you believe in blood supremacy?” 

This time, Regulus does grab the flask, unscrewing it with practiced efficiency and taking a long swig. James frowns in disapproval. Regulus scoffs. They’re at his brother’s murder trial and James wants to have a lover’s quarrel. One that he expects Regulus to stay sober for.

“Our magic is stronger,” he answers, keeping emotion out of his voice. He doesn’t want to have this debate with James. He’s already had it too many times with Sirius. And it never fixed anything between them. It only ever made things worse. “It’s just better inherently. Mud –” he hesitates. “ Muggleborns just clog up the system.”

“So they should all die then?”

“They should stop interfering in our world.”

James laughs in disbelief. And it’s not fair, because his eyes seem to get brighter and his lips seem to get redder with his indignance and his whole face is glowing. And Regulus wants to kiss him again, while his parents are locked away in another room and can’t hurt him for it.

It’s not that Regulus necessarily believes that killing all Muggles and Muggleborns is necessary, but he does get the point. They have their own world and their own jobs, and it’s not right for them to be taking over the education and employment that rightfully belong to pureblood wizards. He knows James doesn't understand that, and he knows Sirius was quickly disabused of his own blood purity ideals at the beginning of his friendship with James, all those years ago.

But Regulus has always been more of a realist. That peaceful coexistence all the blood traitors preach of is just a fantasy. Like Regulus thinking he could kiss James with no consequences. 

Muggleborns and purebloods could never live in harmony. His parents are making sure of that.

“Is that why he was running away? Why he had his trunk packed? Because of all that blood purity bollocks?”

This catches Regulus off guard. 

“How did you know he was running away?”

James’ face is hard, his body tensed. Regulus feels the urge to take another sip from the flask, but fights to suppress it. As it turns out, he needs to be lucid for this conversation.

“They found his trunk packed,” James spits. “With his wand inside.”

Oh, Sirius. Regulus had looked for the wand, after he’d grabbed the letter. But there wasn’t much time. And he wasn’t able to find it before the Aurors arrived.

“Is that why they hurt him? Because they caught him leaving?” James asks again. “Why then? After all those years of terror, what was the breaking point?”

James’ voice is an open wound, bloody and leaking. He wants so desperately to know. And Regulus wants so desperately to tell him. To tell anyone.

“I can’t talk about this,” he answers quietly, turning his eyes to the floor. It’s covered in scuff marks, a physical reminder of the nervous energy that permeates this witness room.

“Just tell me the truth!”

“It’s not that simple,” Regulus pleads. 

“So what, you’re going to lie in court?”

When Regulus doesn’t answer, James laughs again, but it comes out shaky and stuttering, like a sob that got twisted in his throat.

“This is just like Remus said,” he mumbles to himself. “You’d never tell the truth.”

Regulus chances a glance upwards, and James’ eyes are filled with tears. He quickly looks away again.

“Who wants you to lie?” James demands. “Who’s making you lie?”

Regulus bites at the skin of cheek, harder and harder until he tastes blood.

“Regulus, look at me,” James commands, and Regulus obeys. James is all flushed anger and heartbroken pleas, and Regulus pretends the blood on his tongue is whiskey that burns and rips and destroys on the way down. He wants it to kill him from the inside out. He wants it to rot whatever goodness is left within him. He doesn’t deserve any of that.

“Would the truth change the outcome of the trial?” James begs. “Do you know something no one else does?”

Regulus feels it, when it clicks into place. A calmness. An unbreakable facade. 

His face relaxes. His eyes clear. His shoulders pull back and down. He breathes steadily.

He smiles, too widely, and he knows it must look unnerving. James looks unnerved.

When he speaks, his voice is steady and empty.

“I know everything, James. That’s the problem.”

James seemed shocked, standing stock-still with a million emotions dancing in his glassy eyes. 

“So you’re just going to take your parents’ side over Sirius’?” he breathes, voice still dripping desperation.

“I have to think about what’s best for me,” Regulus replies diplomatically. It is so much easier this way, when he closes off all feelings, when he untethers himself from all non-rational thought. The mask fits perfectly on his face.

“What about what’s best for Sirius?”

“Sirius is dead,” Regulus responds matter-of-factly. And for some reason, this makes James whimper like a wounded deer.

Regulus walks past him to the door, knocking twice to signal to the Auror guarding it that he needs to use the bathroom. Just before the door opens, he turns around and stares straight into James’ eyes.

“Tell Lupin that if he tries to tell anyone about what he saw, I know the same things about him.”

James looks confused for a moment, seemingly searching through his mind for what Regulus could mean, before his eyes widen in fear.

Regulus allows himself a smirk.

“Don’t forget your invisibility cloak.”

***

It’s well past three in the morning, and Sirius is sitting in the common room, perched on the windowsill. The sky is a deep indigo, lit with the pinpricks of stars and serenaded by the whistling of the wind. It’s so quiet, as if the whole world is frozen in time.

Sirius loves the night. There’s some sort of magic that exists here that’s different from the kind that exists during the day. Some sort of magic that’s different from the kind that flows through his very veins. Some sort of magic that’s older than the earth itself, that’s woven into the fabric of time and space and the plentiful darkness that shrouds them all as the sun sweeps out of sight, taking its well-earned respite.

There are gentle footfalls from the staircase, and then Remus is coming up behind him and hesitantly sitting on the other side of the window seat. Their socked feet meet in the middle, touching delicately.

Sirius glances around furtively, making sure no one else is in the room, watching them.

Remus lets the silence rest for a few moments.

And then, “Did I do something?”

Sirius hums his confusion.

“To hurt you, I mean. To push you away.”

The guilt is an influx of burning liquid in his veins, traveling too quickly though his bloodstream and making him woozy with its heat. His cheeks redden. His ribcage melts into itself.

“No, I just…this doesn’t feel safe.”

“We’ll be more careful then,” Remus replies immediately, as if this problem can so easily be fixed.

Sirius swallows thickly, feels the spit drip down into the flaming roil of his stomach acid.

“Don’t you ever feel…gross?” He looks away when he says it. He can’t bear to see Remus’ reaction to the words.

“You mean…” Remus realizes what he means. His voice sharpens. “Why would I ever feel gross with you, Sirius? I don't believe that this , what we have, is anything to ever be ashamed of.”

Sirius keeps looking away, his shoulders hunching inward.

“But you do.” Remus says it softer, the words tinged with realization and disappointment, and Sirius can’t handle that.

“I don’t want to,” he insists, finally meeting Remus’ patient gaze and hoping the other boy can see the sincerity of the words within his own pleading eyes.

Remus leans forward, taking one of Sirius’ warm hands into his palm. He cradles his fingers there, running a soothing thumb over them, as if they are something to be cared for, cherished.

Orion used to break Sirius’ fingers. Crack the bones in them and reheal them with his wand just to crack them again. After a while, he’d just leave them unhealed.

“What’s going to happen to us when we leave school?” Sirius asks. “Because you know they’d never let me be…”

Remus squeezes his hand tighter.

“We can't know what will happen in the future,” he agrees. “But are you going to let them stop you from living your life right now because of what might happen in a few years?” His other hand comes up and tucks a strand of Sirius’ hair behind his ear. “You’re safe here,” Remus promises.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You haven’t,” Remus replies, his forgiveness immediate and absolute.

“I’m scared,” Sirius admits, pushing his feet further into Remus’. So many points of them are touching now, but Sirius thinks he could physically crawl inside Remus’ skin and it still wouldn’t be enough contact. “And I still feel…”

“Ashamed?” Remus supplies, and Sirius nods, the guilt once again spiking his temperature.

Remus shifts further forward so he can rest their foreheads together. They breathe in sync for a few moments.

“I’ll find you,” Remus whispers.

“Hm?”

“That's what will happen. After we leave school. It’s what I promised, isn’t it? To find you, in every lifetime?” He waits until Sirius nods again. A small, tentative thing, but there nonetheless. “Then let’s start with this one.”

They share a soft kiss, Remus’ lips against his own making stars tingle up Sirius’ spine. 

I’ll never have enough time with you , he thinks again.

But he says instead, “I’m going to get you hurt.”

“That’s okay,” R emus says, like he really means it. Like he truly understands the gravity of what being hurt by Sirius’ parents entails.

“It’s not,” Sirius protests, because no one can understand that gravity.

“Well I don’t really care,” Remus replies, his forehead cool and grounding against Sirius’ boiling temples. “I’m aware of the risks. This is my choice.”

It’s sweet and it’s certain, but it’s still not enough. Sirius still feels like dirt beneath his father’s shoe. His fingers still remember the echoes of those breaking bones.

“I don’t deserve this,” he confesses, voice but a whisper.

“That doesn’t matter,” Remus insists. “Do you want it?”

Of course , Sirius thinks immediately.

Despite all the guilt and the shame and the dirt, despite the pain and the fear and the paranoia, Sirius wants it. More than he wants anything.

“Yes.”

Chapter Text

Orion testifies first.

“Tell me what happened in the hours before Sirius died,” Rabastan instructs.

Orion heaves a deep sigh, as if this whole trial is a nuisance he can’t wait to be relieved of. Nothing more than a buzzing fly he’s been aching to swat away.

“I’d gone to bed. Everyone had, I thought. I heard some commotion from the library and I went to investigate. I found Sirius there, between the bookshelves, dragging a trunk behind him. I asked him what he was doing, and that’s when he attacked me.”

“Attacked you how?”

“He went crazy. Shouting at me that I was an awful father. My wife must’ve heard the shouting, because she rushed into the room then, trying to calm Sirius down, but he wasn’t hearing reason. He began to get physically violent, shoving me and my wife into bookcases. She hit her shoulder very hard on one of them. She’s still got a bruise there.”

“Yes, we saw the photo evidence of that earlier. And that’s when you used the Cruciatus Curse?”

“He started scratching and kicking and trying to tackle me to the ground. I’d never seen him so irate before. I thought he was going to seriously injure me. So yes, I used the spell on him, in self defense.”

“Did you intend to kill him?”

“Of course not. He was my heir.”

***

“Why did you bring your wand downstairs with you?” the barrister asks Orion.

“When I heard the commotion, I assumed it might've been an intruder.”

“How many wards does your house have?”

Orion smirks, as if he’s been caught in a trap, but he has a secret key in his pocket. As if this is all great fun, like a casual debate intended to entertain him.

“Several.”

“Has any intruder ever been able to penetrate them before?”

“No, but there's a first for everything.”

“Like killing your son?”

Orion’s smirk widens.

“I admit I caused his death. And I regret the fact that I had no other choice but to cause it. He gave me no other option.”

“Sirius didn't have his wand on him. But you had yours. If he was attacking you as you claim, couldn't you have just used a stunning spell or a body bind or something less aggressive than the Cruciatus Curse?”

“I was in fear for my life. I acted in self defense.” Orion glances up at the members of the Wizengamot, scanning them with his eyes. When he speaks again, his voice is dramatic, imploring. The voice of a father who cared for his son. Who only ever wanted what was best for him.

“Those spells only last so long, and he could resist them when he was angry enough. He possessed a very strong magic, and I regret not showing him how to manage it better.” 

He sighs again, but this time it’s mournful, burdened.

“It’s a risk we bear for being pureblood. Our magic is just too powerful.”

***

“Do you believe the spell you used on your son – the Cruciatus Curse – was excessive?”

Walburga takes a second to think, to compose her answer. 

“We did what we had to,” she replies, to the barrister. Her testimony to Rabastan a few minutes ago had matched Orion’s down to the detail.

“Whose idea was it to use the spell?”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“Was it yours, or your husband’s?”

“We both used the spell.”

“That's not what I asked. Whose idea was it to use the spell?”

Walburga takes another moment. Her eyes lift nervously to the Wizengamot and then snap back down.

“My husband’s. But I supported it,” she hurries to add.

“When we found Sirius’ body, it was covered in bruises and blood. There was a deep crack in his skull.”

Walburga stiffens.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.” She says it so quietly, several people across the courtroom lean forward to hear her better. “I didn’t…” Her mouth snaps shut. She’s wearing that same lost look on her face. The one that matches Narcissa’s.

“Mrs. Black, what does the Cruciatus Curse do?”

“It’s used to torture,” she whispers.

“But you didn't mean to hurt him?”

She shakes her head.

“Did you mean to kill him?”

“Of course not. He’s my son.”

***

“Did you know your brother was planning to run away that night?”

Regulus keeps his eyes forward, trained on the embroidered emblem of the barrister’s emerald green robes. He does not look at the man. He does not look at the members of the Wizengamot. He does not look at Narcissa or James or any of the other spectators. He just stares unblinkingly at that emblem.

This is his chance. His only chance. 

Just one answer. One word. 

All he has to say is yes. Yes, I knew that he was running away. Yes, I know why. Yes, I know what they were going to do to him. Yes, I know what they did to him instead.

I know everything. Just like he’d told James.

“No.”

“Do you know why he might’ve been running away?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t hear any of the argument between your brother and your parents?”

“No.”

It seems to be the only word he can say. 

“I also didn’t see him attack them.”

It’s a risk. A dare. He can see Rabastan’s eyes narrow out of the corner of his gaze. But they can’t get too upset. They want Regulus to have seen nothing. It’s not his fault if that nothing includes a nonexistent attack.

It’s a bit of defiance. A bit of bravery. An homage to Sirius. 

Regulus can’t fight for him here. It’s too late already. But he wants Sirius to know – he hopes Sirius knows – that that doesn’t mean he’s just okay with all of this. That doesn’t mean that every day he lives without his brother isn’t the hardest day he’s ever had to face.

“You testified that you checked his pulse once he stopped moving.”

“Yes.”

“What did you feel?”

Sometimes, on the nights when it’s really bad, when the echoes of screams and the images of blood won’t leave him alone, when he wakes up gasping for air and scrambling backwards, away from some invisible attackers, he envies Sirius. Envies that Sirius escaped. Envies that Sirius no longer has to see them again.

Envies that Sirius died, and Regulus must keep living.

“Nothing.”

Narcissa stands up and rushes out of the courtroom.

“Were you scared, when Sirius was suffering from the curse?”

Regulus' breath freezes in his lungs. Icicles hang from his rib cage as a frightening shiver sweeps through him.

They’re not supposed to ask him questions like that. He’s not supposed to have to think about those details. To relive them.

He’s only practiced certain questions. Practiced saying yes or no and nothing more.

“I don't see how that matters.”

“Humor me,” the barrister says humorlessly.

Regulus exhales frozen fractals. 

“No,” he lies. 

“No? Why not?”

Regulus’ blood is rapidly turning to frost, his lips becoming an unnatural shade of blue as his skin raises in goose pimples. He is ice. He is numb.

“Because I knew my parents would never hurt him. Not unless they had to.”

***

James gets permission to Floo call Effie on the fireplace in McGonagall’s office that evening. The professor gives his shoulder an encouraging squeeze, leaving him with a cup of tea and some privacy.

When Effie answers, her cheeks are blotchy, but she’s wearing a kind smile, the one that’s so familiar from James’ childhood, and something inside him comes undone.

“Mummy,” he gasps out, voice distraught.

“Oh, James,” Effie breathes. “Oh my sweet boy.”

“He lied,” James tells her through soft tears. “Regulus lied.”

Regulus knew Sirius was running away. He knew he’d packed his trunk. And he knew why. 

And he could’ve told the truth, he could’ve done one good thing in this whole awful nightmare they’ve been living since January, but instead, he lied. 

Sirius was his brother, and he lied.

“Lied about what, love?”

“About everything. Everything he said during his testimony was untrue.” James sucks in a breath, voice wobbly and high-pitched. “He knows something. He told me.”

Effie’s eyebrows scrunch together, caught off guard.

“When did you talk to him?”

“It doesn't matter. He could’ve said what he knows but he didn't.” James sniffles, shaking his head. “He didn’t.”

Effie breathes out, long and slow. 

“James.” She waits until he looks back up at her, and holds his gaze as she speaks, her tone gentle but firm. “Today was probably the second worst day of that boy’s life. I can't presume what treatment he receives in that house, but you heard my testimony about the scars on Sirius’ body.” She pauses, as if the memory of those horrible findings deserves a moment of silence. It does. “He’s probably terrified.”

“But this was his chance to get away from them! To punish them for what they did to Sirius!”

Effie’s face softens again, her mouth twisting the way it does before she starts crying, and James looks away. He knows Sirius was like a son to his mum. He knows they’ve both lost someone irreplaceable.

“I know you're disappointed. I'm sorry, James.” Her voice breaks as she says his name. “I'm sorry I couldn't protect you from this.”

And then James’ tears start again, but they aren’t soft and gentle anymore, they’re loud, hitching sobs that wrack through his body, shaking his chest and clogging his throat.

“I wish this all was a bad dream and you could wake me up from it like you used to when I was a little kid,” he cries. “I wish it didn't hurt so much.”

His sobbing turns to a coughing fit, which eventually settles into shaky breaths and sniffles. He thinks about Effie’s words. About Regulus being terrified. About what happens in that house.

And he thinks about seeing Orion in the courtroom that morning. How the callousness in his eyes chilled James to the bone. How he made Sirius sound violent and unstable instead of scared and desperate. How he used his blood purity beliefs to justify Sirius’ death. How everyone seems to just be a pawn to him – another warm body to turn cold at his convenience.

And James understands where Regulus gets his ideals from. Why he thinks pureblood magic is stronger. Like father, like son.

But those ideals are taught. Which means they can be untaught.

There’s still time for Regulus. Remus is wrong about him. He can’t be a lost cause. He’s the only part of Sirius that’s left, so he can’t be a lost cause.

Sirius once held the same ideals. And then he unlearned them. James helped him.

James helped him…

“Do you think…” he hesitates, and Effie waits patiently for him to continue, always ready to catch James when he falls, even when she, herself, is on shaky ground, too. “Do you think maybe if I’d never met Sirius, never made him reexamine his views about blood purity and realize they were wrong, that none of this would've happened?”

“This is not your fault, James.” Her voice is resolute. “Not in any way.”

“But maybe he would’ve been better off just going along with whatever his parents said.”

Like Regulus is doing.

“James, whether you showed him the light or not, he would’ve come to that conclusion anyway.” Effie’s lips twist again, but this time, James makes himself look at her. His mother has always seemed superhuman to him. Someone who could fix any problem he had, who always knew the right thing to say. But now…

Now he can see the way this is breaking her. And it's breaking him to watch her crumble.

“That boy didn't have a bad bone in his body,” she continues. “He never would’ve continued to hold those beliefs. It just wasn't who he was.”

Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought, Remus’ voice echoes in James’ mind.

But James did. And Effie did.

You’ve just betrayed him.

But James knows it’s not a betrayal. Remus is wrong again.

Because James knows Sirius. 

And Sirius would want someone to look after Regulus. 

Now that he can’t.

***

Everyone have their Galleons?” Sirius asks, feeling excitement ooze from the tips of his fingers like electric sparks. It’s loud in the Three Broomsticks, crowded with students and professors alike, and Sirius is feeding off their energy.

“Sir, yes sir!” James salutes him, his typical lopsided grin tilting his mouth upwards.

Sirius beams back at him. Hogsmeade Saturdays are the best, and today is even better, because it’s Christmas shopping day. 

Every year, Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter take five Galleons each and run amok through the town, frantically buying holiday gifts for each other. They only take 30 minutes, and five Galleons doesn’t buy too much, so it’s really a race against time and money.

But it’s Sirius’ favorite Christmas tradition. 

He wasn’t able to send or receive any gifts while at Grimmauld during his first year, so the Marauders put their heads together and devised this plan instead. And it doesn’t matter what small objects and oddities the other boys wind up buying for him each year, because just knowing that they created this tradition for him was the best gift he could’ve gotten.

Sirius finishes his Butterbeer in one huge gulp, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and winking at Remus, which makes the other boy roll his eyes at him fondly.

“Let’s go,” he declares, and they’re off.

His first stop is Honeydukes, because both Peter and Remus have sweet tooths, but in very opposite directions. He spends half a Galleon on sugar quills for Peter, and the other half on the darkest dark chocolate he can find. Then he rushes over to Scrivenshaft’s where he buys a small pot of red ink for James, because Gryffindor forever.

Zonko’s is next, because gifting Remus a love potion seems to be the funniest thing Sirius can think of right now. With the pearly liquid secured, he heads to Dervish & Banges, where he finds a mini broomstick the size of his palm that’s enchanted to whizz around his head ceaselessly, making the most annoying whoosh ing sound. Maybe he’ll just release that one in their dorm instead of giving it to anyone in particular.

Sirius runs up and down High Street until his cheeks are ruddy and his lungs are heaving. The cold hits his skin in such a satisfying contrast to the sweat building along his back, and for a startling moment, everything feels so right in the world.

He tips his head backwards, right there in the middle of the street, and laughs loudly. A few students turn to look his way, their expressions ranging from confusion to annoyance, but he doesn’t care. 

In a whirl of speed and color, James rushes by him, letting out an ear-splitting whistle when he spots Sirius, and Sirius returns his enthusiasm with an echoing cheer. 

This is the best day of the year.

Sirius checks the change in his pocket and the time on his watch. He’s got a few Sickles and five minutes left. He walks past the few stores he’s not usually interested in, trying to find one more small gift, when something catches his eye in Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop.

There, in the window, is a stunning display of boxes of cinnamon biscuits with vanilla icing, shaped to resemble snowflakes. The scent of the cinnamon is wafting outside into the chilly air, warming it with a sense of comfort that makes Sirius ache inside.

Cinnamon always reminds him of Effie. It’s her favorite spice to bake with. She’s always sending James on the train with bundles of cinnamon-flavored pastries. She’s always hugging Sirius on the platform with protective arms that smell of the sweet spice. 

He hates going into Madam Puddifoot’s, all the gaudy pink decorations overwhelming him, but he finds his feet shuffling forwards, finds his fingers picking up a box of the biscuits and sliding the last of his money over the counter to buy them.

He’ll have to give them to James and ask him to pass them onto Effie. James will smile at him, that stupid, lopsided grin, and say “Sure, Sirius, of course,” and be so secretly pleased that someone else sees the same wonder in his mother that he does.

And Sirius knows it’s just a small token, something Effie could probably bake herself, and better, too, but he thinks she’ll understand what it means.

Because Effie always seems to understand.

Chapter Text

Eight days after the trial begins, it ends. 

The barrister steps forward with a sense of grave determination, his loud shoes quieting the gentle murmuring of the spectators. His robes are a vibrant crimson today, as stark as blood.

He clears his throat, looks to the crowd, then to the members of the Wizengamot, and begins his closing argument.

“Sirius Black was an innocent child. From a young age, his parents, Walburga and Orion, hurt him, leaving him injured and scared and distrustful. On the early morning of his death, he was arguing with his parents. About what, we may never know. Perhaps he had finally had enough of their mistreatment.”

He inhales sharply, releasing it slowly into the silent room. Every face in the crowd is tense. Every spectator is holding their breath.

“You have heard testimony here that Sirius attacked his father and mother during that argument. There is not enough proof to sufficiently corroborate those claims. And even if Sirius did become physically agitated and violent, there is no way that he would’ve been a match for the people who had been hurting him his whole life.”

He looks into the eyes of each Wizengamot member. He urges them to examine every word he speaks.

“They had wands. Sirius did not. In fact, Sirius’ wand was found in a trunk on the other side of the library, far away from his body. The Cruciatus Curse was not necessary. It was a gross overreaction out of anger because Orion and Walburga were mad that their son – their heir – had finally decided to leave their abusive household.”

He locks eyes with Dumbledore. The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. The headmaster of Hogwarts. The man who knew Sirius.

“Orion and Walburga had a child in their care and they killed him – knowingly. Don't let Sirius’ death go unpunished. Find Walburga and Orion guilty of using an Unforgivable Curse.”

As the barrister returns to his seat, Rabastan rises from his, purposely knocking his shoulder into the other man’s. He is smirking. This is all such fun.

“Sirius Black was a deeply disturbed child. He was reckless and cruel and dangerous. He tried to sneak out of his house in the middle of the night, and when his parents discovered it and tried to reason with him, he attacked them and endangered them, forcing them to respond the only way they could: by subduing him with a curse.”

Rabastan’s eyes are flickering over the Wizengamot just like the barrister’s did, but his gaze is skipping to certain faces and lingering on them meaningfully.

“Walburga and Orion never intended to kill their son. That was a misfortunate accident.”

He turns slightly, glancing back to Narcissa before delivering the next line. She quickly lowers her eyes to the floor.

“But these were extenuating circumstances. An Unforgivable Curse was the only option. A lesser spell would never have worked on a child as willful as Sirius. He would've attacked again, as soon as he could.”

Rabastan turns back around, and his eyes stop on Dumbledore. They narrow to a glare.

“You must absolve Walburga and Orion of any perceived crime. They cared for their child and they wanted him to grow into a respectable, disciplined young man. They are as distraught by his death as any of you.”

He sweeps back to his seat, letting silence return to the room like a blanket over a birdcage.

***

The spectators file out of the courtroom as the Wizengamot takes time to deliberate. Remus immediately rushes outside into the nippy afternoon air. There are great storm clouds overhead, fading everything with a thick sheen of grey. Even the grass beneath his feet looks dull.

He throws his head back, staring up at the sky and daring it to rain on him. Let it pour. Let it flood. Let it wash this whole world and all its wretched creatures away.

He opens his mouth and screams. And screams, and screams, and screams, until his throat is raw.

And then James is beside him, and Peter, too. And then Lily and Mary and Marlene, and he looks at all their trembling faces and he screams again. It sounds like a wounded howl. Like a lone wolf, desperate for its pack.

“They painted him to be the villain!” he yells at James. Lily tries to put her hand on his arm but he shakes it off. “They said he was cruel and violent!”

They took Sirius, his Sirius, his endearingly arrogant, steadfastly loyal, endlessly loving boy and made him into a dangerous animal that needed to be put down. And Remus knows exactly what it is to be framed like that.

“His parents are clearly guilty! They hurt him again and again and again!”

“It’s not over yet,” James tells him, urgently. “They haven’t reached a verdict.”

And Remus finds himself laughing, something loud and scratchy and obnoxious. 

Because it doesn't matter. This whole trial didn’t matter. This has been over since Sirius’ bleeding head hit the floor. Since his beating heart froze one final time.

Mary starts crying softly. Above them, the clouds finally open, and a torrent of freezing raindrops begins to sting their skin.

***

Less than an hour later, they’re called back into the courtroom. Dumbledore rises from his seat, addressing them all with a somber expression.

“By a majority of votes, we, the Wizengamot, find that Orion and Walburga Black acted in the event of extenuating circumstances. They will receive no further penalty from this court, and are released from the custody of the Ministry. This court is adjourned.”

James’ heart drops down to his feet. He can’t breathe without a heart pumping oxygen through his blood, so he begins to suffocate, right there on the bench he’s sharing with Narcissa. He starts to claw at his throat, starts to beat at his chest, trying to get his body to keep him alive. Trying to survive the immense pain he is enduring.

Narcissa is watching him. Her eyes are bugging out of her head. Her skin is paler than normal – practically translucent. She opens her mouth once, then closes it. Swallows and tries again.

“I’m…”

James looks at her, his frantic hands grasping and clutching and clawing.

She looks terrified.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers hastily, before leaping off the bench and scurrying from the courtroom. 

James stares after her retreating form, unable to process the words.

A split second later, Lily is at his side, putting one soft hand in the middle of his chest and the other on the back of his neck. She tilts him forward slightly, so his forehead is resting on her shoulder. 

“In and out,” she instructs.

“I can’t –” he wheezes.

“Yes, you can. Just in and out.”

James squeezes his eyes shut, trying to feel past the stifling weight caving his chest in and force out some air around it. He manages a hitching gasp.

“That’s it,” Lily coaxes. “You’re okay.”

They stay like that for a few moments, James breathing shakily and Lily soothing away his panic.

When James feels like he can sit up straight again without passing out, he does, leaning back and looking into Lily’s earnest eyes. She looks as wretched as he feels.

“It’s Unforgivable,” he whispers, not understanding how it all could’ve come to this.

Lily’s frown deepens. She takes his hand. Squeezes it once.

“Only for those without power.”

Across the room, Remus stands up on a bench, shouting for the whole Wizengamot to hear.

“This whole trial was a fucking sham!”

His voice reverberates off the walls, bounces over the tables and under the benches, and leaks into the floorboards. Remus stares straight at the wizard in the middle, rage emanating from him like tumbling waves on a shattering sea.

“And Dumbledore is a fucking coward!”

Aurors usher Remus out of the room before he can say more, and as he goes, James catches a glimpse of Dumbledore’s face. 

The headmaster doesn’t look angry or surprised or even ashamed. There is only one expression tilting his mouth, lining his eyes, creasing his cheeks.

Pity.

***

With today’s magnificent loss to Ravenclaw, the Gryffindor Quidditch team has now lost to all three of the other houses. They are, one hundred percent without a doubt, out of the running for this year’s Quidditch Cup. What a shocker.

Sirius played his best. They all did. But some things just seem to be doomed from the beginning.

“Hey,” he calls to James and Marlene as they head out of the changing room. “Grab the others from the stands and meet me at the Forbidden Forest in ten.” 

“Why?” Marlene asks sullenly, scraping her shoe against the floor and pouting like an overgrown child. Sirius knows she was really hoping this year would be the one they got to watch their names he magically engraved into that sparkling trophy. 

“Enough moping,” he tells her. “Don’t you trust me?” He puts on his shiniest smile, and she rolls her eyes, but starts heading toward the stands anyway.

“What do you have planned?” James seems upset at the loss too, but also the slightest bit intrigued by Sirius’ surprise.

That’ll do , Sirius thinks.

“Better catch up with Marls,” he replies, giving James a soft shove in her direction.

“You really are a wanker sometimes.”

“I learned from the best.” 

“I resent that,” James mumbles.

“Go!” Sirius urges, and James finally struts off, his cloak billowing behind him in the frosty air.

When they all reconvene at the edge of the forest, Remus finds Sirius’ gaze and raises his eyebrows in question, but Sirius just smirks. 

“Come on then!” he exclaims, already heading into the dense brush.

He knows this route by heart. Straight until the tree with the gnarled branch, then a sharp turn to the right down a winding dirt path past a small clearing. When the path fizzles out back into homogenous, spongy ground, each patch unintelligible from the rest, make a left and it’s a straight shot to the large slab of rock.

He dug here one full moon, as Padfoot. He could sense something was to be found, and he spent hours and hours filling his paws with dirt and tiny pebbles. The wolf kept nipping at him to try to get him to play, but the dog was persistent. Dug all the way into the ground and up back through it, marvelling in black and white at the beauty of its finding.

Sirius went back the next weekend in human form, searching for an easier entrance. Wondering if perhaps the sanctuary he discovered was some sort of fever dream. Too good to be true.

“Just back here,” he tells his friends now, following the slab around to a patch of thorny bushes. “They poke,” he warns, before parting them with his gloves and ducking headfirst into the small opening.

The cave is as wondrous as ever – damp and echoey and secluded. Nothing can bother him here. Small slivers of light filter in through the gaps in the bushes, covering the textured rock walls with a million sparkling suns. Dust mites float through the streams of light like snowflakes frozen in space. It smells earthy, like dirt and clay and must. 

There’s something so comforting about it. The earth, like a dear friend, welcoming him home.

The bushes part again, and someone steps into the cave behind him. At once, he feels a spike of nervousness, his throat contracting harshly.

He’s never shown this to anyone before. He’s kept it all to himself. 

He wasn’t sure they’d understand.

“Wow,” Remus breathes, glancing around in awe, his eyes skimming over the walls and the light and the dust. Sirius’ nerves dissolve into gentle morning dew, cooling and calm. He smiles brightly.

“You better watch your head, Moony. You’re too tall for this.”

Remus returns his smile.

“It’s lovely, Sirius.”

Once the others have settled into the cave, leaning against the rock walls or perching on bits of dry ground, Sirius glances at Mary, trying to keep his tone casual.

“Mary, my darling, have you brought it?”

She puts on a mock-confused look as she reaches into the pocket of her jeans.

“Whatever could you mean, Sirius?” she asks as a blunt materializes in her palm. Her eyes twinkle.

They smoke for a while, passing the weed around and sharing memories from classes and detentions and Hogsmeade trips they all experienced together. They fill the cave with boisterous voices and rumbling laughter and an easy, comfortable camaraderie. And when the blunt is so small it’s burning their fingers, they finally drop it to the soggy ground, watching as the last dregs of smoke rise into the now-cloudy air between them.

“A toast,” Sirius proposes.

“We don't have drinks,” Marlene grumbles, clearly still annoyed about their Quidditch match.

“A metaphorical toast,” he corrects, miming a glass in his hand. “To all of you: my dear Gryffindors, my beloved friends. To us! The 1976 Hogwarts Quidditch Cup losers.”

Mary giggles, raising her own fake champagne. “To the losers!” she echoes.

Remus, Peter, Lily and James all follow suit. James raises his pinky, sucking in his cheeks and pretending to be posh. Remus elbows him and James spills his fake drink all over Remus’ hair.

“Marls?” Sirius prompts. She hasn’t joined in the fun yet.

“We should've won,” she sighs, slouching further into the wall of the cave.

“Can't win them all,” Sirius replies.

“But we should've won at least one,” she argues.

“Probably, yeah.”

Sirius has never been the type to believe things are meant to happen. He knows, intimately, that life can’t be predicted, and that things don't always happen for a reason. Life is randomness, which to some might seem meaningless. But to Sirius, it seems infinite.

Everything is always changing, which also means he always has a choice in how he reacts to those changes. Opportunities come and go, and it doesn't matter which ones he takes and which ones he doesn’t because more will always come, and some will be good and some will be bad and some he’ll never really know how to feel about.

And there's something lovely about that. Something freeing.

“I’m glad we’re here now though,” he says. And when he smiles at Marlene, it’s gentle. Genuine.

They’ve grown up together. All of these people around him, they're not just school friends, people he’ll phase out of his life once he leaves Hogwarts. These are the people he’ll spend the rest of his life with. The people he wants to spend the rest of his life with. They’re the people who know him. Actually know him.

They're the only part of the randomness he never wants to change.

Marlene watches him for a few moments. Then, slowly, a soft smile lifts up her own face, and she raises her invisible glass.

“To the losers.”

Chapter Text

April passes dreary and grey. A few students mumble hushed apologies to the Gryffindor sixth years, but most of the students just give them a wide berth, unsure what to say or how they’ll react to it.

All of Remus’ untamable anger flows into the wolf, and Moony winds up going on a rampage on the full moon, nearly ripping Wormtail’s tail off and slashing claw after claw into Prongs’ long neck before turning on himself. James, Peter, and Remus all wake up bloody and injured the next morning, and they have to spend a week in the Hospital Wing lying on hard mattresses and only eating soft foods.

It’s probably for the best, James thinks bitterly, since Remus usually spends all his meals looking over at the professors’ table and glaring at Dumbledore.

Remus doesn’t speak to either of them after that.

Regulus is avoiding James, too. If he’s drinking, he’s doing it in private. Sometimes James will pass him in the corridor, and Regulus will look right through him, like he doesn’t even exist. James no longer needs his cloak to be invisible.

He puts it on anyway one day after classes end. He walks all the way to the dungeons, waits for a second year he doesn’t recognize to say the password, and slips into the Slytherin common room behind her.

He’s never been in here before. It’s…eerie. Everything is dark leather and menacing green light. An odd hue hangs off the windows above, and it takes a minute for James to realize that the weird light is being cast from the Black Lake. Lily had told him that once. That the Slytherin common room is directly beneath that yawning abyss of shadowed waves and creatures unknown. She’d read it in some book.

He can feel it now – the suffocation. The way his chest feels heavy and his lungs feel compressed. The way he’s suddenly afraid to take a deep breath for fear of swallowing mouthfuls of scorching ocean instead.

James remembers the story Regulus told him about nearly drowning in France when he was young. He wonders if Regulus ever feels scared in here. If he ever feels like he’s being pulled under the surface again.

He waits for Regulus in the common room, hearing snippets of conversation about pureblood politics, Astronomy assignments, and everything in between.

“I heard there was a bunch of evidence of abuse,” one third year whispers to his friend, perching on the arm of an uncomfortable-looking black couch. “And that they killed him with a Crucio.”

“But only because he tried to kill them first,” the friend replies, her voice insistent. “My mum has a friend who works in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and she said that they found a whole slew of dark magic on Sirius’ wand.”

The boy gasps, and James’ blood boils, as if someone is holding a lit match to his heart. He almost rips the cloak off, almost lunges forward and pushes the boy off the edge of the couch, almost screams at them that the only spell Sirius was using was one to heal all the damage they’d done, but, just then, Regulus appears in the doorway.

As he walks through the room, the students fall silent, watching him like a wild animal in a cage. He ignores them all, striding over the verdant fractals of light dancing along the floor with his head held high and his shoulders pushed back. 

James waits until Regulus disappears up the stairs and the chatter resumes before he follows the boy up to his dormitory, fighting the urge to stomp his feet in annoyance. The dorm is empty except for Regulus, who immediately goes to the armoire on the right side of the room, opening it and pushing the hanging row of robes to the side. James watches as he crouches down and crawls into the space he’s made, positioning himself behind the clothes. 

He just sits there, not making a noise. 

And then, a few moments later, a soft crying. 

James’ chest crumbles. Regulus sounds so childlike, like a toddler that has skinned their knee. James wishes he could say a quick healing spell, wishes he could stem the bleeding and the hurt and offer a gentle kiss to the reddened skin.

But a dead brother is not a skinned knee. And nothing can fix this. Not ever.

James slowly removes the cloak, folding it up under his arm before speaking softly.

“Regulus?” he calls, and the boy yelps as if he’s been hit. He scrambles out of the armoire, frightened for a moment, and then fuming the next.

“Why are you here?” he spits.

“I haven’t gotten to talk to you,” James answers. It sounds lame and desperate even to his own ears.

Regulus wipes tears from the corners of his eyes, still breathing a bit erratically. James wishes it were his fingers touching that skin.

“Oh, bugger off,” Regulus snaps, but there’s not enough heat behind it, and it comes out sounding tired instead of angry.

“Are they making you go back there? To Grimmauld?”

Easter holiday is next week. Regulus could stay at the castle, if his parents let him. James can’t imagine what it would be like to have to see them right now. To have to go back to that house where Sirius…

Regulus scoffs. “Actually, we’re going to France.” 

A few of James’ ribs crack now, their pieces falling to the ground to join the rubble of what used to be his chest. Their dust clouds the air in front of him, making it hard to breathe. 

“To the sea? With your parents?”

Regulus just gives him a look. And then, venom dripping off his tongue, “Why do you care anyway? I believe in blood purity, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean I want you to die!”

The word seems to shock them both. Regulus hunches inward, his shoulders finally pulling forward as if to protect him. He stares at the floor.

“I’m…” James tries, but he can’t finish the sentence. He’s not sorry. He’s not sorry for any of it. For anything that’s happened between them.

Regulus slowly sinks to the floor, curling his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on top of them. It makes him look so small. James sits down across from him.

“You have to let me go,” Regulus whispers.

“No,” James breathes.

Regulus looks up at him sharply, eyes still red and wide and aching. 

“I have to live with my brother’s killers.” He waits for those words to sink in, waits for James to fully understand the gravity of them. “And you’re making it worse.”

James’ starts coughing up the dust, his lungs twisting and screeching.

“Why did you do it?” James begs, once he gasps in enough air to speak again. “Why did you lie?”

Regulus shakes his head. 

“It doesn't matter anymore.”

“But it would’ve changed things,” James insists. “You told me that.”

Regulus presses his face into his knees. James waits for him to re-emerge, but he doesn’t.

“Regulus –”

“I’d like to be alone now,” he interrupts, the words coming out muffled. James huffs, but Regulus doesn’t move at all.

“Fine,” James grumbles, standing up. He throws the cloak around him, annoyance and worry spiking in his mind, and heads for the door, but a thought stops him on his way. He turns back around. 

“Will Narcissa be there? In France?”

James’ isn’t entirely sure why he asks. It’s just something he noticed during the trial. A slight feeling that’s brewing in his gut. 

She seems different from the rest of them. Maybe not as much as Sirius was, but enough.

“Yes,” Regulus mumbles.

James glances at the remnants of his chest littering the floor just a bit away from where Regulus is sitting.

“Good.”

***

“I want to burn Grimmauld down.”

“What?!” James’ head snaps up so fast he feels dizzy for a moment. They’ve been packing in silence for half an hour now, tearing their dormitory apart as they search for missing socks and clean trousers and shoving their trunks full of clothes, extra parchment, loose Sickles, and whatever else they might need for the week-long Easter holiday.

Remus is staring at James, unblinking. It’s the first word the other boy has spoken to him in weeks, and James knows Remus is still angry about him kissing Regulus. Or, rather, about Regulus kissing him.

“We’ll go during the holiday.”

Remus looks deadly serious, and frighteningly determined. James glances over at Peter but his face is unreadable. James sinks down onto the edge of his bed, his fingers playing idly with the vest he was about to toss into his trunk.

He considers Remus’ words. 

Regulus won’t be there. No one will. They’ll all be in France. So no one will get hurt.

There are wards around the house, Orion said so during his testimony, but they can crack those. They can do this. Really do it.

And oh , does James want revenge. He wants to watch the flames devour the place alive, wants to watch each bit of blood and pain and horror trapped in those floorboards to die screaming in clouds of red-tinged rage. He wants the smoke to overwhelm any lingering pieces of Sirius’ soul that are still tied to that haunted house, finally freeing them to go forth and find the peaceful rest they deserve.

He looks up at Remus, then over to Peter once more. He stands back up, and throws the vest into his trunk.

“Let’s burn it to the ground.”

***

Remus waits anxiously outside King’s Cross Station, feeling his heart beat faster each time a passerby’s gaze lingers a tad too long on him. His parents were asleep when he left, but he can’t rid himself of the nagging feeling that they’re going to discover his absence anyway.

Someone taps him on the shoulder and Remus nearly jumps out of his skin. He whips around to find James and Peter, the former staring at him with the hint of a grin on his face. Remus glares back at him, and James’ expression turns uncertain, like perhaps he’s misstepped.

Remus’ stomach curdles, and he looks away into the soft glow of the streetlights. He knows he’s being awful and mean and rude. But every time he sees James’ face, James’ red, splotchy, tear-streaked face, Remus feels jealous and he feels ashamed. Because none of this is James’ fault, which means the other boy can grieve Sirius properly, knowing that he did all he could. And Remus does not have that luxury.

Besides, James is being awful himself right now anyway, trying to replace Sirius with his cruel, bigoted younger brother. Maybe Remus should’ve come alone tonight.

“No one saw you sneaking out, did they?” Remus asks now, still looking off into the night instead of at his friends.

“No,” James replies softly, and Peter echoes his response. “And we took the Muggle train, just like you instructed.”

Remus nods sharply. “Let’s go then.”

They make their way to Grimmauld through moonlit streets, the stars above blinking down skeptically at them. For a few minutes, the only sounds of their journey are their own steady footsteps and random bits of drunken conversation that float by on the wind.

And then, because he can’t resist: “Explain it to me,” Remus demands.

Both James and Peter look over, slightly alarmed.

“Why you kissed him,” Remus clarifies, an edge to his voice.

“What?” Peter asks. “Kissed who?”

James ignores him, leveling Remus with a hard look.

“I didn't kiss him. He kissed me.”

“ Who kissed you?” Peter insists.

“Regulus,” James and Remus say at the same time, which makes James sigh heavily and Remus roll his eyes. Peter, for his part, looks completely baffled.

“Explain it,” Remus repeats forcefully.

James clicks his tongue in annoyance, looking away from Remus. He’s silent for a few moments. And then his shoulders shrug.

“He’s different, when you get to know him. He’s…scared, I think. Really scared.”

Remus fights the urge to interrupt. What does Regulus have to be scared about? His parents would never treat him the way they treated Sirius. Regulus is their golden boy – their perfect, pliable puppet.

“I think when they were in that house together, that he was all Sirius had. And Sirius was all he had. And now…” James’ eyebrows are scrunched, like he’s struggling to find the right words to say what he means. “I know Regulus has a lot of questionable values. I know he and Sirius weren’t always brothers in the way they should’ve been. But I think that when it mattered, when it really mattered, that Sirius did depend on him. And I think that now he would want me to make sure Regulus has someone to depend on.”

Remus thinks about the way Regulus and Sirius used to look at each other in quick moments when they thought no one else was watching. At the Start-of-Term Feast, locking eyes across the Great Hall, or in the doorway of a compartment on the Hogwarts Express, hesitating for a moment’s glance before grabbing their trunks and disembarking onto Platform 9 ¾. Right before and right after they went back to that house.

In their eyes was a sort of quiet determination, a truce almost. As if the only way to survive the shadowed crimes of Grimmauld’s halls was to put all else behind them and unite. As if, in the face of true evil, the luxury of moral righteousness was stripped from them.

But Regulus should’ve done more. He knew about the abuse. He should’ve told someone, even if it brought his parents’ wrath down on him. He should’ve given his own life, should’ve jumped in front of the curse and let it torture his body instead.

But there are many things that a lot of people should’ve done, and Remus himself is not absolved of that burden.

Still though…

“Doesn’t explain why he kissed you.”

James nods, almost subconsciously. “I never meant for that to happen. I was never going to…” He looks down at his feet. Bites his lip. “I like him,” he admits in a whisper, as if it’s a secret, and Remus supposes it is. “But I wouldn’t…not right now.”

They walk in silence for a bit longer. James isn’t wrong, and that’s the worst part. Remus loved Sirius, with everything he had, with every fiber of his being, every thought in his mind, every strand of his braided soul, but James loved him, too. And James knew him. Maybe better than all of them. Or maybe they each just knew different parts. 

James knew Sirius as a best friend, as a confidant and a partner in crime and an unwavering supporter, mischievous and cunning and shockingly brilliant. Remus knew him as a lover, as someone soft and vulnerable and generous, placing the most delicate, breakable parts of himself into Remus’ hands. And Regulus knew him as a brother, for whatever that word did, and did not, mean. 

But Remus is pretty sure that for Sirius, at least, it meant someone who would look out for him during the worst moments of his life. And this is probably one of those moments for Regulus.

Remus comes to a stop, finally meeting James’ gaze.

“Don’t let it happen again,” he says gruffly.

“Don’t think I’ll have the chance,” James replies solemnly. He stares at Remus for a moment longer, then scuffs his foot on the sidewalk. 

“James?” Peter asks. “You’re a bloke.”

James hums back at him in confirmation.

“And Regulus is a bloke.” Peter’s eyes are beginning to narrow.

James nods slowly, his own eyes fastened on the ground. 

“Well spotted, Pete,” Remus replies drily. He gestures to the street in front of them. “Shall we?”

***

Number 12 Grimmauld Place looms before them. Except it’s not looming. It’s actually quite…regular-looking. It just seems like a standard townhouse. A brown brick facade with rectangular windows and absolutely no indication of the atrocities that occurred within it.

Remus knows it’s invisible to Muggles, and he can practically taste the tang of magic in the air from the layered wards. They make quick work of them – which actually turns out to be quite lengthy work – searching and identifying and dismantling until they can’t find any more.

Lily wants to be a curse-breaker after Hogwarts, and all of last term, she spent her free time studying the subject and then making Remus quiz her on what she’d read. As it turns out, a lot of it stuck in his brain, too. He sends her a mental thank you, grateful that her swotiness is helping to fuel his revenge.

“I think we’ve done them all,” he calls to James and Peter. James nods and they both step back as Remus lifts his wand. He takes a deep breath, pictures Sirius’ face contorted in fear, sees his blood staining the bookshelves, imagines the screams as he suffered under the Crucio.

His vulnerable, delicate, breakable Sirius.

He grips his wand tighter, until his fingers feel about to snap.

“Pestis Incendium!”

***

When he finally breaks away from kissing Remus, lips red and heart stuttering, Sirius starts to giggle. It bubbles out of him like champagne overflowing from a bottle. He just can’t contain his happiness. Every time he kisses the other boy, it feels like flying.

“Shh!” Remus urges, fighting to contain his own laughter. They’re squished into the bathroom on the Hogwarts Express, having snuck away after telling James and Peter they needed to stretch their legs. “Someone’s going to hear us.”

“Let them hear,” Sirius murmurs, lowering his head into the crook of Remus’ neck. It’s so warm here. So safe. Remus’ arms tangle around him, hugging Sirius’ body closer into his chest. Sirius wishes he could freeze time right here. How simple it would be, to live his whole life in Remus’ embrace.

But time won’t freeze. It never does. No matter how much he wails and screeches and bleeds. 

“I’m going to miss you,” he breathes into Remus’ skin. There’s a sensation he gets at the back of his throat. A very subtle tightening, like a latch clicking into place, cutting off the smallest bit of his airflow. Something restrictive.

It’s not exactly fear. Not anymore. It’s more like…dread. Recognition that bad things are about to happen, and acceptance that he will have to endure them. 

He feels it now, that latch clicking. He’s no longer flying. 

“It’s only two weeks,” Remus assures him. Sirius wishes it did.

“Still going to miss you,” he mumbles, and Remus squeezes him tighter.

“Wish I could write to you,” the other boy says softly, one hand snaking up to run through Sirius’ hair. Sirius focuses on the sensation of Remus’ long fingers tugging soothingly at the strands and tries to clear his mind of this past term as best he can. It won’t serve him at Grimmauld to have any memories of Remus and the nights they shared lingering in his mind, ripe for the taking with a simple Legilimens.

“Mother said no letters.”

She didn’t. But if Remus does send letters – or James or Peter or anyone – Walburga will undoubtedly read them. And, like everything he’s doing with Remus, that’s dangerous.

“You will be okay, won't you?” Remus asks, his voice the last ringing note of a somber ballad, and Sirius knows he’s thinking about the bruise on his shoulder at the start of term. The latch tightens.

Eventually, Sirius wants to reply. One day.

One day, he and Remus will live in a little cabin on the edge of the woods, and they'll slow dance together in earth-smelling caves and run around on full moons over acres and acres of lush, green grass with a canopy of protective trees hovering overhead, and James will apparate over for tea every afternoon, with Peter joining on the weekends, and they’ll all blast music that reminds them of their school days and play raucous games of Exploding Snap and fly up on their brooms in the middle of the night to touch the stars. They’ll host the wildest birthday parties where Lily, Mary, and Marlene will join them to reminisce about classes and professors and Quidditch games, and Andromeda and Alphard will stop by to give presents and get teary-eyed and sappy thinking about how far they’ve all come from where they began.

And maybe Regulus will be there, too. And maybe Sirius will look into his brother’s eyes and not see fear or shock of that eerie, aching emptiness.

Maybe there won't have to be ulterior motives and survival skills.

Because one day, it will be okay. Sirius will be okay.

“Of course,” he breathes, and he feels Remus relax a bit against him. And then, because it suddenly feels important, “And you’ll find me?”

Remus tilts his head down, brushing a feather-light kiss against Sirius’ hair.

“Always.”

***

Later, as James pulls their trunks out from underneath the bench in the train compartment, he offers Sirius a sort of melancholy grimace. Sirius figures it must be his best attempt at a smile, under the conditions.

Peter and Remus are in the next compartment, saying their goodbyes to the girls as the train starts to pull into the station.

“You can always write, if you need anything,” James reminds him, as he yanks Sirius’ trunk upright and pushes it towards him.

“I know,” Sirius replies, accepting the trunk and fighting to keep his voice nonchalant even as the latch constricts his throat. “I hope you have a nice Christmas. Tell your mum I say hello. And don't forget to give her the cinnamon biscuits.”

James nods, manhandling his own trunk in front of him and sighing in success once he’s done.

“She misses you, you know,” he says with a false casualness.

“I know,” Sirius repeats, and it aches.

James takes his glasses off, rubbing the lenses against his sleeve to clear them of smudges. It’s a familiar action, and Sirius must’ve seen James do it a thousand times by now, but he stops to watch it anyway.

James’ eyes are scrunched real tight, like he can’t even see the blurry outline of the world anymore, even though Sirius knows his eyesight isn’t that bad. His tongue is peeking out of the side of his mouth like it sometimes does when James is concentrating really hard on an exam or a game of chess. His hair is messy and he’s still breathing a bit heavily from the exertion of removing the trunks.

And all at once, an overwhelming fondness seems to fill up inside Sirius. How wonderful it is to have James Potter by his side. James, who glows so brightly and effortlessly everywhere he goes. James, who has been a steady constant in his life since he was eleven years old. James, whose hair is always messy and glasses are always dirty and friendship is always, always , unconditional.

James pops his glasses back on and Sirius looks at him, not sure how much of his thoughts are being revealed by his face right now, but it must be enough, because James tilts his head to the side in question.

“What?”

Sirius watches him for a moment longer, before shrugging his shoulders.

“I love you.”

James smiles radiantly.

“I know.”

Sirius laughs, and it feels good, and James steps forward and hugs him, something strong and real and grounded. And when they break apart, Regulus is standing in the doorway, looking hollow.

Sirius glances at his brother, then back at James. He swallows, feeling as it scratches past the latch.

“See you on the other side.”

Chapter Text

The Fiendfyre jumps out of Remus’ wand, nearly knocking him backwards with the force of it. A giant wolf unfolds in front of them, rapidly approaching the house from all sides in a blinding flash of red flame that lights up the night. It is stunningly gorgeous for a few moments – wild and free and untamed. 

James blinks at it in awe. He can’t believe they’re really doing it. The air around him is rapidly filling with heat, and it spurs him on, makes his heart beat faster and his nerves sharpen. He’s breathing in the smoke, and for once, he welcomes it. It’s bright and burning and hot and  –

Too hot. Much too hot.

The fire is suddenly out of control, seemingly bouncing off the edges of the house and rounding back onto James, Remus, and Peter. The flames seem to be chasing them, the wolf’s yawning mouth nipping at their limbs as they scramble backwards.

There must’ve been a ward they missed. Something with dark magic. The fire hasn’t even singed Grimmauld.

“Remus!” James calls frantically, casting shield charm after shield charm that doesn't even last a second against the fire. “Use the countercurse!”

Remus looks over at him, face bewildered and panicked. “I’m trying!” he shouts back. “It’s not working!”

The wolf expands, gets bigger and faster and hungrier. Remus gives up on the spell after a few attempts and starts sprinting away with Peter on his heels. James tries to follow suit, but the smoke is searing his lungs and his eyes, and he begins hacking, falling to his knees as his body fights for oxygen.

He squeezes his eyes shut, wraps his sleeve over his mouth, and tries to stand up again, but then the flames are atop him, twisting into his hair and latching onto the hem of his jeans. He wails. His pulse is throbbing so quickly it’s making him feel light-headed. Everything is heat and pain and fear. The ground beneath him is lava.

He can smell himself burning. The acrid, metallic scent of it invading all of his senses.

This is how it ends. This is the grand finale. 

At least he’ll get to see Sirius again.

And then, just as the smoke and panic are pulling him towards unconsciousness, there’s a hand clamping down on his shoulder and yanking him back, hard.

***

Remus pulls James back as hard as he can, yelping as the flames begin to lick at his own feet.

“Help me!” he screams at Peter, who’s been standing frozen as the fire engulfed James. Remus knows he’s probably in shock, but they don’t have time for that right now.

Peter seems to shake out of his stupor, his body jolting involuntarily once before he rushes forward and grabs James’ other arm, helping Remus drag the boy back from the flames. James manages to regain his footing, but he’s in a state.

He’s coughing and gasping for breath, his eyes streaming with tears. His skin is covered in soot and there are bright red burns on parts of his exposed skin. The wolf advances forward again, its face breaking suddenly into multiple heads that surround them on all sides, synchronized jaws snapping and snarling.

“Help!” Remus shouts manically, not even sure who he’s calling to. But they’re in over their heads, and James is becoming hysterical and incoherent, his chest rising and falling alarmingly quickly. His legs give out beneath him, and Remus just catches him before he falls to the ground, lowering him gently down instead.

“What do we do?” Peter asks him desperately, and Remus has no answer. James whimpers. 

No one is coming. No one can put out the flames. 

“Run!” he yells to Peter. He refuses to lose another friend. He waits until Peter has taken off into a sprint before he shoves James fully down onto the ground and throws his own body over top of the other boy’s, shielding him. 

It strikes him now, how easily they could all die. How perishable they all are. How fragile and powerless their lives are.

Broken skulls and burnt bodies and scared, screaming children. 

He’s been so angry, so irrevocably furious at everyone around him, pushing them all away, convincing himself he wanted to be alone. But the truth is that he can’t bear the thought of losing even one more person. He hopes he’s never alone. He hopes that no matter what fights they all get into, no matter how much he might disagree with their actions, that he never has to live without another person that matters so much to him.

So he shields James, and he prepares to burn.

***

Remus’ body is on top of James’, weighing him down, suffocating him. He tries to struggle out from under it, but Remus has got him pinned, his face pale and his eyes squeezed shut. The heat is encroaching. 

“Remus,” he gasps, and the other boy shushes him in a way that attempts to be soothing but comes out frenzied.

Somewhere in the distance, James thinks he hears Muggle sirens, but he might be hallucinating them. His whole body is one large wound, charred and open and bloody. He starts to cry harder, and the tears sting his burnt cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Remus whispers, over and over again, and James isn’t sure who he’s speaking to anymore.

The sirens get louder and the flames get closer. James starts to struggle again, but the pain is overwhelming, and he feels his mind start to give way once again to that dizzy oblivion of unconsciousness. He lets himself drift, vaguely hearing Remus’ muttering and more sirens.

And then someone is screaming, very loudly, very horribly, their voice cutting through the air and into James’ mind. He knows that voice.

It keeps screaming, keeps stabbing at his brain, screeching out garbled, confusing words, until, in a bright flash of blue sparks, the flames climbing up Remus’ legs and skimming across his back all turn to smoke, drifting up to the sky above them in great clouds of grey.

The heat dissipates. The fire is gone. James breathes.

“Mum?” he asks, searching for the voice he heard. “Mum?” he calls louder.

Effie is on them in an instant, her face terrified and anguished. She drops to her knees, enveloping them both in a giant hug as she sobs into their bodies. Behind her, Fleamont appears, one arm wrapped around Peter’s shoulders.

“The Muggle firefighters,” Fleamont tells her softly, his voice raw from the screaming and the tears and the fear.

She nods into James’ hair. “Breathe through it,” she instructs shakily, and then she’s gripping James’ and Remus’ arms so tightly, and the world begins to flash by.

Everything is a haze of spinning colors and discordant sounds. Nausea flows up inside James like a tidal wave, and, when the world finally evens out into the familiar colors of his sitting room, he promptly leans forward and pukes all over the carpet.

Fleamont appears a second later with Peter, and goes straight to James, running a soothing hand along his back as James heaves.

“Just let it out,” he says. “That can happen when you apparate too soon.”

James doesn’t reply, trying to rid his body of everything inside it. When he’s done, he falls onto his side, his head pounding and his burns blazing. And then Effie is sweeping him up into a hug and she feels soft and safe and smells like cinnamon and James lets out a hitching sob that she mirrors with her own distressed tears, and then he’s weeping uncontrollably.

He cries and he cries, his eyes slipping closed under the weight of the tears, and he feels a deep, tingling sensation pull at the skin around his burns, closing the wounds and soothing the blisters. He feels it rush though him, and he knows its signature, recognizes his mum’s healing spells from every past bruise, scrape, and cut. When he opens his eyes, Fleamont is using the same spells on Remus, who’s staring off into the distance, standing stock still.

“How did you know?” James asks once he manages to calm down a bit. His voice is gravelly. He doesn’t sound like himself, even to his own ears.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Effie tells him, distress still clouding the words. James can feel her heartbeat against his own and it’s rapid. He feels an awful pang of guilt rush through his veins. Of course his mother is terrified. Why hadn’t he considered how she’d feel?

“I went to make myself a cup of tea, and I looked in on you, and you weren’t in your bed,” his mum continues. “I just knew something was wrong, but I knew you had your wand too, because I couldn’t find it anywhere. I waited until you cast a spell and then I traced your magical signature. We apparated there straight away.”

She finishes the words in a rush and hugs James so tightly against her that his lungs can’t expand enough to get oxygen inside them. 

“What would I do if I lost you?” she asks, her voice breaking on the last word. She sounds so scared, so broken, and it hurts, and it makes the guilt even worse, but it also enrages him. The anger spikes all of a sudden and he wrestles out of her grip and shuffles back, sniffling and glaring at her.

Because he’s been asking the same question, over and over and over again, and no one has done anything to make it better. 

“But we did lose him!” James shouts, and even Remus looks surprised at his outburst, the boy’s head shaking itself out of its daze to swivel around towards James. “We lost him forever!”

Everyone just keeps staring at him and his soot-stained face. All that overwhelming fear and panic and guilt and the fire hadn’t even touched the bloody house.

“What am I supposed to do?!”

***

Once they’ve all been healed and cleaned and plied with pain potions, Effie makes James sit on the couch with a hot cup of tea. He glares daggers at it. Remus and Peter are instructed to sit next to him, holding their own mugs. Effie calls Hope and Lyall and Peter’s parents and soon enough their sitting room is filled with the irritating stench of disapproval and worry.

James puts his mug onto the table with a bit too much force, sullenly crossing his arms in front of himself. Remus glances at his posture, raising one eyebrow incredulously at James’ behavior. James huffs and looks away.

He knows he’s acting childish, and he knows what they did was wrong and dangerous and illegal even, but he just can’t get himself to feel anything other than annoyance and resentment. Why does he have to follow the law when Orion and Walburga don’t? Why does it matter that he started a fire and got himself burned when they murdered Sirius and didn’t even get a slap on the wrist for it?

Effie takes a deep breath, looking between the boys with a stern expression on her face. James supposes she’ll be leading the crusade.

“Let’s review the night,” she begins, and James groans internally. “The three of you snuck out of your beds to travel all the way to London so you could use underage magic to cast a Fiendfyre spell – one of the most difficult spells to manage for even the most skilled of wizards, not to mention a type of dark magic, and one with a countercurse that is nearly impossible to cast correctly – that rapidly got out of control resulting in severe burns to you all. You tried to burn someone’s house down and you nearly maimed yourselves, or worse, in the process!”

Her voice pitches upwards higher and higher as she speaks, until she’s breathless again. She’s not yelling exactly, but she’s clearly anguished.

“If I hadn’t gotten there in the nick of time –” She cuts herself off, seemingly aghast at the thought of what would’ve occurred in the second half of that sentence. Fleamont steps forward from his place behind her to take over.

“You are all incredibly lucky that we found you when we did,” he tells them. “It’s important that you understand that.”

Next to James, Remus nods.

“We’ll be speaking to Dumbledore about the use of underage magic and the attempt to damage private property,” Effie starts again. “Given the circumstances, I’m inclined to believe he’ll look past it and encourage the Ministry to do the same.”

James is about to roll his eyes but Remus beats him to it, his penitent act disappearing in a flash.

“I don't want anything from him,” he snaps. Near the fireplace, Lyall’s eyes narrow as Hope’s widen.

“Too bad,” Effie replies, clearly losing patience. She sighs heavily and takes a moment to compose herself.

“Now that you are all healed and safe, there are a number of things I’d like to know. First off, where did you even encounter a spell like Fiendfyre?”

James refuses to answer. Remus also stays silent. Effie puts on her most intimidating look, and the boys hold out for a tense few seconds, but then Peter pipes up with a nervous, “The restricted section of the library.”

“I should take that cloak away from you,” Fleamont mutters.

“We didn't use the cloak,” Remus interjects. “And it was my idea, not James’ or Peter’s. It’s my fault.” He looks down to his knees. “All of it,” he finishes much more quietly.

“Remus,” Hope admonishes. James scoots his knee over to brush it against the other boy’s. 

“You're lucky Orion, Walburga, and Regulus weren't there,” Effie tells them.

“I knew they wouldn’t be,” James snaps back at her. Both his parents fix him with a look.

“If you're not calm enough to have a productive conversation about this then we can reconvene tomorrow,” Effie replies sternly.

Before James can dig himself any further, Remus mumbles something.

“What was that?” Lyall asks sharply, stepping forwards.

Remus looks back up, staring his father directly in the eye.

“Let them burn.”

“You don’t mean that!” Hope insists, looking incredulous.

James shares her shock. He looks over to Remus in disbelief, and the other boy finally snaps his focus away from his father to meet James’ gaze. They lock eyes, and suddenly James can feel it, the agreement that passes between them. The solidarity that clicks into place. 

Remus threw his body over James’. He had a split second to decide what to do, and he could’ve run, could’ve escaped, but instead he put himself closer to the flames just so that James would be further away from them for those last few fleeting moments. He was ready to burn. They were ready to burn, together.

There’s still hurt and blame and distrust brewing in the distance between them, still lingering notes of anger and pain and betrayal, but it’s no longer insurmountable. They’ve lost so much, but they’ve lost it together. 

James has spent months now looking everywhere where Sirius. Maybe he’ll have better luck finding him with Remus by his side.

“Maybe it was a mistake to let you go back to school so soon,” Effie says, breaking up James’ thoughts. “We could keep you here at home. Keep you safe and protected. You could have time to process this all.”

“No,” James answers immediately, and his gut swoops with panic renewed.

“James –”

“I want to be there,” he says desperately. “I want to…I want to be where he was.” He can see the moment his mum understands what he means. He watches the way her face falls. “I’m sorry for what we did tonight,” he continues, with a sincerity he hadn’t realized he was feeling. “And I'm sorry that I made you worry, that I made you scared. It wasn’t supposed to go like that. I really am sorry, Mum.”

Effie studies him for a long moment, and James grimaces with rising alarm, feeling how his chest tightens and his insides twist themselves like a rag being wrung out over and over. She has to let him go back. She has to.

Finally, Effie sighs, glancing at the other parents before looking back to the boys.

“I’ll be asking Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall to keep a closer eye on all of you. And I don't want you leaving the castle grounds. No going to Hogsmeade.”

“Fine,” James agrees, a bit too quickly, his chest already loosening. Remus clicks his tongue but says nothing. Lyall shoots him a scalding look.

“I'm sorry you’re hurting,” Effie adds, her posture finally relaxing a bit now that things have settled down. James reaches for his tea, taking a sip for her sake.

“It wasn't fair,” he voices, because he wants them to know that while he is remorseful about what he’s done, he still thinks the reasons behind it are justified.

“No, it wasn't,” his mum agrees. She shares a look with Fleamont, something grave and sinister passing between them. “I’m afraid things might get a lot more unfair in the coming months.”

“You mean with the Death Eaters,” Peter says, and Effie smothers her surprise as quickly as she can.

“Yes.”

James looks over to Peter. The other boy shivers.

“But never mind that now. I know you’re angry, and you want revenge, and the verdict of Sirius’ trial doesn't make sense. And I hope you know that when you feel that way, you can talk to me, or any of us,” Effie says, gesturing to the rest of the parents. “Ask us questions. Say whatever you need to. I’ll be honest with you.”

“I will, too,” echoes Hope, with a sort of calm determination. Effie nods at her.

“There’s no guidebook to grief. I don't know what you’re supposed to do without Sirius, and I'm sorry I don't know. I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you,” Effie laments. “But I am here for you, and you need to be there for each other. You need to have each other’s backs.”

Some of the sternness creeps back into her voice. “This was a bad idea, and you all knew it. Someone should’ve spoken up. Someone should’ve stopped it. There isn't anything you can do to Orion and Walburga now that won't end up hurting you more than them. And I know it shouldn't be that way. But I will not lose any of you to anger or impulsiveness or grief. I will not lose more children.”

It’s silent in the wake of her declaration. Fleamont steps up next to her, resting a hand on her back. A sign of comfort, of unity.

“It’s late,” he says. “Let’s all get to bed.”

As the rest of the parents begin to put their cloaks back on, Effie walks to the couch, laying a kiss on top of each of the boy’s heads. She stops on James’, lingering for a moment before whispering, “I love you.”

That’s what Sirius said to him. The last time James ever saw him, on the train last December. He said he loved James. James can still hear his voice. Still see his easygoing smile. Still feel the beat of his heart as he hugged him. 

“I love you, too,” James whispers back.

***

Sirius awakes to his bedroom door slamming open. A second later, wandlight floods his face. 

“Where is it?” Orion demands, already ripping drawers open and throwing their contents onto the floor.

“You’re not going to find it!” Sirius exclaims, putting a hand over his racing heart. He never sleeps well while he’s here, but these nightly raids have been making it all so much worse. His body is in a constant state of anxiety and panic, never knowing quite when his father will barge into his room, invading his space and ruining his possessions.

Orion swipes his wand in the air and suddenly Sirius can’t speak. His fingers claw at his throat, fear swirling higher and higher within him, but there’s nothing he can do. He sits there silently, watching as his father destroys every bit of his being.

Regulus appears in the doorway, clothes rumpled with sleep, but face purposefully blank. Sirius glances fleetingly at him, but Regulus’ eyes are skipping around the room, hovering over all the exposed bits. Searching. Calculating.

Orion whips up a storm of spells, tearing the clothes in Sirius’ closet, ripping up the floorboards, and opening holes in the walls. He slashes the mattress, missing Sirius’ legs by centimeters. He cuts and sears and rages until no spot is left unturned. 

But still he can't find it. Sirius feels a curl of dread within him, shooting out from his hip and tangling around his organs, squeezing tighter and tighter like a snake constricting. He knows what comes next.

“Come here,” Orion spits, lunging over the bed to grab Sirius, but he scrambles away, rushing for the door and brushing past Regulus, who quickly flattens himself against the wall to make way for their father.

Sirius is down the hall, then at the top of the staircase, his whole body heaving with his frantic breaths. Walburga is there, like a deer in the headlights, fearful and frozen. 

Sirius knows she knows what’s about to happen. This is far from the first time it has occurred. They all know. It doesn’t really matter how far he gets. Whether he makes it down the stairs or not. 

But she stares at him for a moment, and she looks so scared, and so human, and it makes him stop, too, makes him gasp as if he could say something. Her eyes drift up to Orion behind him and Sirius thinks it’s going to happen here tonight, at the top of the staircase, with his little brother watching the blood trickle into the wooden floor. And then her eyes flash down to Sirius’ again in a moment so quick he might’ve missed it in a blink, and she subtly steps aside, just enough for him to sprint past.

Then he’s at the bottom of the steps, and through the dining room, and into the kitchen and –

His whole body locks up in a shock of pain and a flash of red. He falls to the floor with an impact that steals his breath. He’d scream if he could. Every nerve in him is alight, every cell is begging. 

His father hovers over him, a menacing shadow he sees each time he closes his eyes. And then Orion is cutting into him, a deep Lacero on the back of his calf.  A thick red line. A tally mark, to join the other two. One for each night that Orion can’t find it. One for each night Sirius refuses to reveal its location.

The pain is sharp, until it’s less, and less, and then just a sting. 

This is where he finds his strength. Within the sting. The hurt is always horrible, white-hot and searing and worse than it’s ever been, but it always, always, fades to a sting. No matter how long it takes. 

So Sirius lies there, and he bleeds, and he waits for the sting. And when it arrives, he thinks of the impenetrable place where he hid it. The thing his father wants most. 

***

“Where is it?” Regulus asks. 

By the next afternoon, Orion has been swept away on urgent business and Sirius has been regifted his limbs and his voice. He supposes he should be grateful.

Sirius shrugs. They’re sitting in the pantry of the kitchen, because it’s one of the only spots in the whole house where the sound doesn’t carry.

Kreacher is on the other side of the room, scrubbing Sirius’ blood from last night off the floor.

“I won’t tell,” Regulus promises, and Sirius can’t help but glare at him. “Kreacher won’t either,” Regulus insists, and Sirius rolls his eyes.

He can’t figure his brother out. He thought for sure Regulus would at least hint at everything he knows about what’s going on between Sirius and Remus. Would at least hold it over Sirius’ head a bit more. But even now, when he wants Sirius’ cooperation, when he’s desperate for it, he doesn’t threaten revealing Sirius’ secret.

It’s almost as if he understands the sanctity of what he’s discovered. Of what exists between Sirius and Remus.

Or maybe he’s just so disgusted to have… that as a brother, and he doesn’t even want to remind himself of it.

“I gave them mine,” Regulus says, refusing to let it go.

Sirius groans, banging his head against the wall. A few grains of rice scatter onto the floor from a shelf above.

“You can do whatever you want,” he replies, condescendingly.

“It’s just a wand, Sirius. They’ll give it back for school.”

Will they? he thinks. Year after year, his parents make them hand in their wands whenever they arrive at Grimmauld. Regulus has always been convinced it’s about security, about safekeeping, but Sirius knows it’s just to remove any bit of power they might have. To uneven the playing field. 

So he wouldn’t do it this holiday. The playing field is uneven enough already.

“They wouldn't hurt you if you just gave it to them,” Regulus argues.

Sirius glances over to the spot where Kreacher’s crouching, and the dread from last night constricts again. If this was James or Remus, he’d tell them that it’s worse than it looks, that he’s fine, that it didn’t even hurt. But this is Regulus, and their alliance within these walls requires honesty. Even when it's cruel. 

“I'd rather they hurt me.”

“I wouldn't,” Regulus says harshly.

Sirius picks up a grain of rice and squeezes it between his fingers, feeling the way it digs into his skin. “I know.”

“You're being an idiot.”

Sirius presses the rice in harder. 

“Just stay in your room next time, okay?” he snaps. “You're not going to find where it is any easier than he is, and there's no point in you getting in the middle of it.” 

Besides, if Regulus ever does find out where Sirius chose to hide it…

“I can make my own decisions,” Regulus replies, just as irritated. 

Sirius huffs. He wants to leave, wants to storm out of the room and put a stop to this whole where-is-the-wand business, but he also doesn’t want to be alone somewhere else in the house. It’s ridiculously frustrating, how even here, now, both of them without a wand on them, stuck in a pantry and utterly defenseless, he already feels safer just by having Regulus’ presence exist next to his own.

They don’t say anything more. After a while, Kreacher finishes his cleaning and leaves, but Sirius and Regulus stay there, together in the pantry, until the sky outside darkens and Orion’s boots echo in the doorway.

Chapter Text

It’s been over a month since they last spoke, but Regulus has felt James’ eyes on him so many times as April turned to May. James has been watching him from a distance, peeking around the end of hallways or hiding in thickets of trees. There are times when Regulus swears he can feel James’ breath on his neck, that if he whipped around and touched the air behind him, he’d feel the silken fabric of James’ invisibility cloak tangle in his fingers.

But Regulus has been careful, avoiding any possible confrontation, biding his time until the right moment. Until he became desperate enough.

And as May fully settles in, breezy and carefree with its long, winding days and temperate evenings, that desperation mounts. There’s only a month and a half until they’ll all be leaving Hogwarts again for whatever fates their summers hold, and Regulus needs to act now, while he still has the nerve. While James might still believe him.

He knows he told James to let him go, and he still means it, but now he knows what he does, and Regulus just needs to make sure that he speaks the words that he’s been cradling so closely within himself to someone else.

Regulus waits until it’s a lazy Sunday morning, the sun full in the sky above and throngs of students lounging on the grounds. He makes himself noticeable, sits down right in front of the Black Lake and pretends to be reading as he scans the grounds. He spots James on the edge of the tree line on the far side, crouched in a bush.

Regulus tries to be subtle, waiting an appropriate amount of time before he slowly rises back to his feet, making a big production of yawning and languidly walking away, as if he’s just tired of the sun. He heads towards the castle, weaving his footsteps in a roundabout route until he’s fairly certain James has lost track of him. Then he circles back, sneaking into the trees and stepping up right behind the other boy.

He stands there for a moment, watching as James squints into the sunlight, searching for Regulus. He lets himself linger there. No one has looked for him for a while. No one has wanted to find him. Not since Sirius…

“James,” he calls softly, and the boy whips around, losing his balance and falling onto his back in the dirt in the process. He jumps up, looking shocked, and then, when he sees who it is, his face flushes a deep crimson.

“Er, how was France?” he blurts out.

Visions of the Easter holiday surround Regulus – rocky shores, empty flasks, beckoning waves. Bellatrix’s sneering voice and Narcissa’s haunting silence. Bottles and whispers and hands gripping his shoulder. Freezing water, in the dead of night. 

“Lonely,” he answers. James’ face, now back to its natural color, looks pained, and Regulus looks away, shaking his head a bit to try to clear the thoughts. He’s working up the courage to say what he intends to when James suddenly gives an awkward little laugh and says, “I tried to burn down Grimmauld.”

“What?!” It’s Regulus’ turn to be shocked now, ice flooding into his veins, freezing him from the inside out. 

Doesn’t James realize how dangerous that was? How pointless?

“Remus, Peter, and I, we…” James pauses, then sort of shrugs, or perhaps it’s just a nervous jolt. He exhales and tries again. “I knew you wouldn’t be there and so I knew you wouldn’t get hurt. But it didn’t matter anyway. We couldn't control the Fiendfyre and it got out of hand. And your wards were too powerful. It didn't matter.”

There’s a sort of resignation in James’ voice, a sort of defeat, and Regulus wishes he could unhear it. Stupid, hopeful, naive James. He should've realized by now that Regulus’ family is untouchable. The Blacks don’t burn, unless it’s themselves holding the match.

“You know I lied. During the trial.”

“I know,” James answers, his voice hardening. Regulus knows it’s still a sore subject between them, but it’s important that James understands.

“But you don’t. Not all of it.”

“Will you tell me?” James asks, his tone indicating he already knows the answer. Regulus stays quiet, watching how James’ lips press tightly into a thin line as his prediction is confirmed.

Regulus looks away from him, turning his eyes to the dirt beneath their feet.

“I know I failed him. I just…I just wish I could flip the whole system on its head. I wish it didn’t matter so much what I said. I wish that all the other evidence – that all the other truth – was enough.” He sighs softly, and says even quieter, “But it never is.” 

And then his eyes are on James again, and he can feel the intensity of his stare, can feel the icicles growing from his ribs as they poke painfully into his flesh.

“I need you to understand that it never is.” That you’ll never win.

They told him, over the holiday. They gave him a choice right there on the beach, as the water lapped at the rocks, its vastness extending further out than he could even dream. They told him what would happen and he could see his brother’s blood on the floor, could see Sirius’ mangled body unmoving, and Regulus knew he was a coward, he knew it was a betrayal, but he nodded his head anyway. 

James can’t protect him. No one can. He’ll have to protect himself, the only way he knows how. And it’s not like he disagrees with the mission.

He’s had a whole lifetime of making the most unbearable things bearable. What’s one more? 

But it’s important, before it all happens, before summer sweeps away the last bit of his brother that’s recognizable within him, that someone else knows. It’s important that James knows.

It’s important that Regulus speaks these words to him.

“No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, I loved my brother.” Worry falls onto James’ face and he opens his mouth to say something, but Regulus rushes on, needing to get this out while he can. “No matter what choices I make, I need you to know that.” His voice breaks, and the icicles inside him begin to melt, their watery residue filling his lungs, suffocating him. “I just need someone to know that.”

“What are you talking about?” James asks, panicked. “What choice?” His eyes are studying Regulus’ face as if he’ll find an answer there, but Regulus knows how to hide anything within himself.

“I loved him,” Regulus repeats, and he can feel the tremor in his voice. “No matter any of it.”

He turns around, intending to hurry away through the trees, but he only makes it a few strides before he stops in his tracks and turns back around, the water inside him sloshing sickeningly at the clear concern on James’ face.

“I would’ve liked to see it burn.”

And with that, he’s gone.

***

It plagues James the rest of the week. That conversation in the trees. That desperation that had been in Regulus’ voice as he’d begged James to believe that he loved Sirius. 

James is starting to lose track of all of Regulus’ secrets. What happened that fateful night that Regulus can’t reveal, what’s going to happen now that’s got Regulus so worried. And one more, that James has been meaning to ask about but has forgotten to since the verdict.

Regulus had told him in the witness room that if Remus ever told anyone about their kiss, that Regulus would tell everyone similar things about Remus. James had assumed it must’ve been the werewolf thing. But there was something about Regulus’ words, something about the smirk on his face, that made James think differently.

And he’s sick of secrets.

***

“I need to talk to you,” James says, appearing from in between two bookshelves in the library and nearly making Remus yelp in fright from where he’s been sitting at a table, staring sightlessly at the wooden grain.

It’s taken until mid-May for Remus to step foot in here after the trial. There are lots of moments from that awful week of testimonies that Remus will be forced to relive for the rest of his life, but knowing that Sirius died in a library somehow seems to be the worst one right now.

Remus used to love the library. It was his spot. His and Lily’s. He’s not sure she’ll ever be able to come in here again. He’s not sure he will either, after trying it today.

“Okay,” Remus agrees hastily, the urge to leave overwhelming him. “But not here.”

He, James, and Peter have been speaking more since the Fiendfyre incident, but things are still a bit awkward and stilted. Sometimes they’re too open. Sometimes they’re too guarded. Sometimes it still hurts, to smile or laugh or even argue, knowing that the one person who should be doing it along with them isn’t there.

Remus and James hurry up to Gryffindor Tower, and James makes sure no one is loitering in the corridor in front of the boys’ dormitories before he closes the door to their room and casts a silencing spell. An eerie feeling invades Remus, like something very bad is about to happen.

“After you caught us kissing, Regulus told me he knew something about you. Something similar. That he’d share it if you told anyone about us,” James blurts out. He’s speaking so quickly and sounds so flustered that it takes Remus a minute to comprehend what he’s said. 

Regulus knows something about Remus and kissing that Remus wouldn’t want other people to know? What could he – 

Remus drops heavily down onto the bed closest to the door. The bed that used to be Sirius’. His legs feel weak and his stomach feels unsteady. 

How did he not see it sooner? All that fear that suddenly rose in Sirius, all those feelings of shame and disgust. Remus should’ve realized the source of it. Should’ve realized that someone found out. Someone too close. Someone like Regulus.

He looks up, queasy, and James is staring at him, unblinking, as if the whole world depends on Remus’ next words.

“I thought it was the werewolf thing,” James tells him, slowly, carefully. “But I don’t think it is.”

Remus could tell him he’s wrong. That it must be the werewolf because he has no other secrets. He could keep Sirius’ confidence, could call Regulus’ bluff, could pretend none of it happened.

But it’s been so painful, hiding this love. Lying to his friends, his family, himself. He can’t grieve Sirius as he knew him if he won’t admit how he knew him. And every second he waits, every moment he hides this away like something shameful, he’s doing exactly what he told Sirius not to do. 

He’s living in fear. He’s forgetting the boy he loved.

He owes James this honesty. He owes Sirius this truth. This freedom Sirius so desperately wanted, and deserved.

“It’s not,” Remus whispers. He clears his throat, feels the rapid fluttering of his pulse, the tightening in his neck. He can do this. He can be brave. He’s not ashamed. Never of this.

“Sirius and I, we…” James is still holding his breath, still hanging onto Remus’ every word. “We weren’t just friends.”

It comes out trembling and scared, but at least it comes out. For a moment, James’ face stays the same, and then it’s falling, further and further and further and Remus’ stomach is caving in and his lungs are deflating and the world is sightless, soundless terror.

James hates him. James knows. James knows and James hates him and James can see how it’s all Remus’ fault. 

James sinks down onto his own bed, staring down at his shoes. He doesn’t say anything, but his face says enough.

“He never told me,” James finally speaks in a small voice. 

“He didn’t tell anyone,” Remus replies miserably. “He was so scared. So ashamed.”

“But I…he could’ve told me.” James sounds so lost, so hurt. “I wouldn’t have cared. He knew that. Didn’t he?”

He looks up at Remus, a plea in his gaze, but all Remus can do is let out a sob. It sneaks out of his concave stomach, crawls up the wreckage of his lungs, and skips out from his lips.

“He was so scared,” he says again, salty tears slipping into his open mouth. “With his family, and…but we were happy. We made each other happy.” He hopes that makes up for it. For all the ways he failed Sirius, he hopes that the brief happiness at least negates them a bit.

And then Remus is crying harder, and his whole body is shaking with it. It’s as if all the tears he’s been repressing, all the sadness he’s been converting into anger instead, has at once come rushing forward, overwhelming him. He can’t keep it in any longer. 

And there’s an undercurrent of something else, too. It grows stronger and stronger, biting his bones and grinding his skin between its teeth. He feels it festering, gnawing. He lets it eat every piece of him. 

Guilt. 

He looks up, and James looks like an open wound.

“He asked me to find him!” Remus shouts, gasping in air between sobs. “He made me promise, and I lost him!” He’s aware he’s making no sense, but it doesn’t matter. Someone has to know. Someone has to see how all of Remus’ rage wasn’t about any of them. It was self-directed. It was well-deserved.

“I knew him better than any of you! I loved him! I saw the bruises and the scars. I held him when he was vulnerable. I should’ve made him talk and I didn't.” He starts coughing, choking on the tears, and he fights against it, fights to suck in oxygen so he can continue. “Don’t you get it? You should hate me!” 

He’s screaming so loudly now, his voice bouncing off the walls and ricocheting back like a bullet into his skull. He curls forward, as far as he can go, burying his face in his knees and letting his body tremble. His bones ache, his blood curdles. It hurts.

And then James’ hand is on his back, stroking soothingly up and down.

“I don’t hate you,” he whispers, sounding choked up himself. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t hurt him.”

“But I didn’t save him either!” Remus yells, raising his head to glare at James. “He was my only chance! No one else is going to love me the way he did. I’m a bloody werewolf for fuck’s sake!”

James doesn’t seem to be able to find anything to say in response, so he just stares at Remus with his wounded face.

“I’m never going to find that love again. I’m never going to find him again.”

And then Remus is sobbing once more, crying so hard he feels like he might pass out, and whispering over and over to James, to Sirius, to the universe.

“I love him. I love him. I love him so much.”

***

Sirius groans in frustration, yanking roughly at the tie currently cutting off his air supply. He can never tie it right. He always has to ask Remus to do it for him, which, if he’s being honest, might be more about him wanting Remus’ hands near his throat more so than about him actually not knowing how to form the knot.

He manages to detangle the fabric from around his neck, wadding it up into a ball and throwing it harshly onto his bedroom floor. His mother’s notorious Christmas soirée is starting in an hour and he can’t get his tie right and his father raided his room again this morning and everything is a mess and there’s a fresh cut on his calf that’s still stinging. He’s already been warned about the consequences of causing a scene at this party, and he can’t decide if he’s more in the mood to mingle with arrogant purebloods or be Stupefied into the back wall of his father’s office.

Regulus has been giving him looks all morning that Sirius has been pointedly ignoring. He just needs to make it through Christmas and then New Years. He still has his wand. He can do this.

He huffs, picking up the tie again. He stares into the full-length mirror, redirecting his eyes from the puffy, purple bags under them to the button at the top of his collar. He tosses the fabric around his neck and starts to adjust the lengths of each end of the tie. Just as he’s about to place one end over the other and begin wrapping it into a knot, a noise outside his door makes him freeze.

Those footsteps aren’t Regulus’. Or Kreacher’s. Or his father’s.

The door opens slowly and Sirius and Walburga lock eyes through the mirror. She doesn’t seem angry. In fact, her face is…pleasant. It stings deeply, like the cut on his leg or the wind whipping against him when he plays Quidditch. Like when he was little and he’d fall down in the garden and scrape his palms. She wouldn’t hesitate to soothe the pain with a healing spell. He never had to wait for it to dull to become bearable then. She never used to make him wait.

“Sirius,” she says softly, and it’s gentle and fond. And he fights against it, he tries to push it away, but there’s a warmth that rises in his body, a secret pride at having perhaps regained her affection.

She seems confident. Certain. Unafraid. And it gives him hope, because it means that she might be here on her own accord, not because of a directive from his father.

She steps closer to him, close enough to take the tie in her own hands. He jolts at first, rejecting the touch instinctually, but she ignores it, wrapping the knot and tightening it, and he relaxes as much as he dares.

“There,” she says with a slight smile when she’s finished. For a few moments, she just looks him over in the mirror, and there’s a tenderness there, and an awkwardness, because moments like these are rare. Because only this morning, she was ordering Kreacher to clean his blood off the floor, yet again.

She finally steps back and perches gently on the edge of Sirius’ bed, gesturing for him to sit in his desk chair, so he does.

She clears her throat, folding her hands in her lap and straightening her shoulders. 

“We’ve been unfair to you,” she begins, in a diplomatic voice. Sirius’ guard immediately rises once more, fear jolting like lightning through his blood. His parents don’t admit fault. The Blacks are never wrong.

“Your father,” Walburga continues. “He wants you to be strong, to be persistent and dedicated, and surely you are. I think you've more than proven that. And I've told him that. That you're your own man now. That you're ready to make decisions. To take on responsibilities.”

Sirius remembers the words his father said to him last summer. That he’d have to make choices soon.

The hairs on his arms rise. The lightning strikes again.

“It's not a bad thing, the way you are. I never meant for you to feel that way. Your courage needs guidance, but it's valuable.”

The fear and the pride are swirling together inside Sirius, mixing and melding until he doesn’t know how he feels, doesn’t know what her words mean. It’s all so confusing. All holiday, his parents have been trying to render him powerless, to keep him carefully controlled. All his life, they’ve been trying to rid him of his stubbornness and his conviction. And now, seemingly out of nowhere, they suddenly want him to be all those things. They suddenly see the value in his strong will, in his audacity.

“You can keep your wand. He won't come looking for it anymore.”

Now this, this is too good to be true. Sirius desperately wants to believe his mother, wants his faith in her to be restored. Wants her to ask him what he wants, to listen and respect his decision, even if she disagrees. Wants her to offer him a choice, a real one, and still give him that gentle smile no matter what he decides.

Wants her to not make him wait a second longer before soothing the pain of the past sixteen years.

But it won’t happen. Even if she’s willing to admit that all of it was – is – unfair, it still won’t happen.

So he keeps his wand hidden.

But there aren’t any more raids.

Chapter Text

In early June, Slytherin wins the Quidditch Cup. In a corner of the common room, huddled together in a secretive circle, the sixth year Gryffindors use this as an excuse to get wildly pissed, downing drink after drink until Remus feels like he’s levitating off the ground.

It feels weird to be here, all together. It feels like a distant memory, like something he hadn’t realized could still occur. Things have been getting better with James, more honest and a little less awkward, but to have the whole group together, to have Mary’s spit mixing on the rim of the bottle they’ve been passing around with Remus’ own, to have Peter’s head lolling sleepily onto Marlene’s shoulder, to have James’ and Lily’s knees brushing together on the floor, still seems bizarre and otherworldly.

“Nothing’s changed,” Remus croaks, in realization.

It’s both good and bad. Maybe they really can re-find the people they used to be. Maybe they can close the gap between them, can sew over the missing square in their collective quilt and form something seemingly complete once more.

Then again…

“It’s been a whole term,” Remus continues, “and nothing’s changed.” He takes another drink, spilling half of it on his shirt, and grimaces as the alcohol singes his throat.

Let it burn.

“He’s still dead. The Blacks are still free. They can still use Unforgivables.”

“Regulus still isn’t safe,” James adds, quietly. Remus meets his eye and can see the apprehension in James’ gaze. He waits for a moment, then gives the other boy a slight nod, and James’ eyes fall back down to the ground.

Everyone falls silent. They’re all drunk and they’re all sad and they’re all numb. Just because they’re doing it together doesn’t mean everything is fixed.

“It’s not going to be the same, is it?” Remus asks. “Ever.” And then, because sobbing his heart out to James hadn’t actually absolved his guilt, “We all saw the signs. None of us did anything.”

“What could we have done?” Marlene asks miserably, her words slurring together, her pulled back hair coming loose to frame her bloodshot eyes.

“Regulus was in that house and he couldn’t do anything,” James adds. He looks deep in thought, a little frown creasing his forehead. Lily picks his hand up from where it’s lying idly on the floor and squeezes it once. James, after a moment, flashes her a somber smile.

Marlene and James are right, Remus knows. No one did anything. Maybe no one could’ve done anything. 

It rises suddenly within him like a growing hunger, a yearning, a need. He feels it urging him on, spurring him to action. He needs to do something now , something before the term is over. They’ve tried justice and they lost. They’ve tried revenge and it nearly killed them. What else is there to do?

And through the foggy haze of his whiskey-laden brain, Remus realizes the answer. It’s the one thing he hasn’t let himself do properly: mourn. Accept that Sirius is gone. Stop thinking about all the people that hurt Sirius, all the people that made his life awful, and start thinking about Sirius himself. About how wondrous he was. About the fact that he lived at all, and that they all got to share in his brilliance.

And an idea begins to form.

***

They meet at Potter Manor on a balmy Sunday morning. They wipe their shoes and fix their hair and settle into tea, making small talk about the weather and the students and the ever-changing world around them.

Effie puts out a tin of biscuits – cinnamon flavored and snowflake shaped. McGonagall raises an eyebrow, and Effie mutters quietly, “They were a gift. From Sirius. Last winter holiday.” And then the room is deathly silent, and McGonagall’s body is frozen once more, just like it was when she first saw Sirius’ body splayed out gruesomely on that library floor.

“He would always hold a bit too tightly during hugs,” Effie says after a while, sipping deeply from her teacup. “Would never let go first.”

Next to her, Madam Pomfrey nods along, as if Sirius’ need for love was as evident and conspicuous as the clouds in the sky. McGonagall supposes it was, and it makes a lump appear in her throat. 

“He would always keep Remus company when he was in hospital,” Madam Pomfrey says. “Used to ask me about healing spells and magical scars and the sort. I thought perhaps he wanted to be a healer.”

The lump fills with dread, clogging McGonagall’s windpipe and making her cough into her elbow. She’ll have to go next. Have to share her own memory of Sirius that shows just how much she noticed and just how little she did about it.

She clutches the china teacup between her palms, willing it to warm her chilled skin. Outside, birds chirp pleasantly, sharing their songs with the untroubled June air.

It’s different for Effie and Poppy , she reasons. They didn’t see as many signs as her. They didn’t have as many chances to tell someone about it.

It’s been nothing but months of endless guilt and shame and disappointment. She’s been questioning everything she once knew – or thought she knew – about being an educator. About protecting the children in her care.

It's not your job, the other professors have told her. It was supposed to be his parents’. They were supposed to keep him safe.

But McGonagall knows she was as good as Sirius’ parent. She knows she was the only one who could keep him safe.

She clears her throat, tries to swallow past the lump. “He really annoyed me sometimes.” It comes out fond, and Effie smiles warmly at her. “He and your son would plan these terrible pranks all the time that would terrorize the rest of the student body. And he could be so flippant at times, it drove me crazy.” She surprises herself with a laugh, imagining that stubborn look on Sirius’ face. “But he always respected me, and he was always protective of his friends. And he was a damn good Quidditch player. Finest Beater I’ve seen in a while.”

She stares at the biscuits, thinks about the remnants of Sirius that lie scattered all over this house, the castle, her office, his dormitory. The birds outside become more insistent, arguing back and forth in melodic harmonies. Early afternoon sunlight is streaming in the windows. It’s a beautiful day.

“His second year, after the summer holiday, I was collecting the essays I’d assigned for the start of term. The students were supposed to read a chapter of the new textbook and write an analysis of the Transfiguration techniques mentioned. But Sirius didn’t turn anything in, and when I asked him about it he just shrugged and said he couldn’t be bothered to complete it.”

McGonagall pauses to pour more water into her cup and take a few calming breaths. It won’t do any of them good to dissolve into crying fits.

“I made him stay after class, and I asked him what he did instead with all the time during which he wasn’t bothering to do my assignment. And this odd look came over his face. I don't know how to describe it. He just looked…older. Much older.” Her breath catches for a moment as she sees that image again, the exhaustion in his eyes, the hopeless tilt of his shoulders. “I gave him detention for two days. Made him scrub toilets and write a new essay about the value of keeping up with schoolwork.”

Madam Pomfrey reaches across the table and grasps one of McGonagall’s hands in her own. Poppy’s skin is warm and smooth, and McGonagall smiles gratefully at her.

“I saw bruises in later years,” she confesses, her voice getting thick. “I think a part of me must've known what was going on, but I thought I was reading into it too much. And I knew the trouble the Blacks could cause and I didn’t want to make the target on Sirius’ back any larger.” It’s all a jumble of excuses, and McGonagall bows her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the emotions.

“I’m so ashamed,” she whispers.

Poppy holds her hand tighter.

“Even if you had said something, it might not’ve fixed anything. Look how the trial turned out. There was so much evidence, yet still…”

“Poppy is right,” Effie interjects. “I thought…” She sighs heavily. “Well, I don’t know what I thought. I let myself hope. And maybe I shouldn’t have.”

McGonagall shivers, an eerie fear prickling at her skin. “I spoke with Dumbledore,” she reveals. “After the verdict. He’s been fighting things internally within the Wizengamot, the ministry. Things bigger than this. He said he has to pick his battles, be strategic about it.”

“A boy is dead,” Poppy replies, coldly, but she leaves her hand resting on McGonagall’s.

“I didn't say I agreed. It’s just what he told me.”

Effie makes a noise of distress, rapping her fingernails against the table anxiously.

“Things are getting scary,” she says grimly. “I want to shield James from it. Shield them all from it. But the Dark Lord is getting stronger and soon enough it’ll be their reality no matter how much we try to avoid it.” She pauses, seemingly debating whether or not to say the rest of what’s on her mind. She sighs and continues. “I trust Dumbledore. Maybe not always to make the right decisions, or to pick the right battles, but I trust him to see us through this.”

Poppy nods in agreement, and McGonagall hums her assent. She’s worked with Dumbledore long enough now to know that the man’s work is usually ten steps ahead and almost never what it seems. And Effie is right – whatever horrors lie in the wings, ready to pounce on them all, Dumbledore is the wizard to manage them. They need to support him, if only to support themselves.

Quiet descends after Effie’s declaration, and McGonagall takes a biscuit, biting into it and letting cinnamon flood her mouth.

It’s stale.

***

James is on his knees, his eyes cast upon the flames of McGonagall’s fireplace. She’s letting him use her office again to Floo call his mum. 

He can’t get Regulus’ words from the woods out of his head. Why is it that every time he talks to the younger boy he’s left with something haunting? 

Regulus had mentioned having to make a choice, had told James no matter what happens. And now James is worried all over again, is searching for all the signs he missed before, is getting drunk to momentarily forget the anticipatory guilt of not being able to do enough to stop whatever is going to happen.

He thinks about what Marlene said, how none of them could’ve helped Sirius. They’re all powerless. All James ever does is care and care and care and all he ever gets in return is pain and loss and grief. Maybe it’s better to not care at all.

All he knows is that he’s twisted. He’s all mixed up. He needs his mum.

Effie’s face appears out of the flames, smiling softly. She looks tired but calm, her mere presence soothing James’ aching soul.

“Hi James,” she says softly, speaking his name with such warmth.

“Hi Mum,” he whispers.

“How are you doing, love?”

James shrugs, chewing at his bottom lip. He doesn’t say anything more for a few moments.

“Want me to tell you about my week?” Effie offers.

James nods, thankful for the distraction, and listens patiently as she describes her days at work, Monty’s newest hair potion that’s he’s developing, and the baffling tea they shared with their batty neighbor Ms. Hargrove. James picks at his lip and his shoelaces and tries to process the fact that so much of the world has moved on around him. That so much of the world never knew Sirius, and now never will.

“Hey Mum?” he asks when she’s finished, and Effie hums back at him. He sighs, suddenly nervous to speak. His stomach tingles with an unsettling mix of anxiety and shame. “I don’t think I want to love anyone ever again,” he breathes, and the words rush forward into the flames of the fireplace, only to be consumed by the heat. “It hurts too much.”

“Oh, James.” Effie gives a sad little laugh. “That doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. That’s the price you pay, the deal you sign. All that love you have, all that abundant love, it never leaves you. It just changes to grief. Loving someone, it means accepting that hurt. It means being willing to hurt for a while, for forever, if only to have the chance to love them for a moment.”

There’s something in his mum’s voice, some sort of regret, almost as if she doesn’t want to tell James. Almost as if she wishes she herself wouldn’t have to know.

James leans closer to the flames. The sun is beating strongly outside and the air within the castle is sweltering, but McGonagall insists on keeping the fireplace in her office going, its heat making James sweat through his shirt.

“I just feel so powerless,” James laments. “We couldn’t save him.”

“Just because you didn't save him in the end doesn't mean you didn't save him a hundred times before. You're never powerless, James. Your love is power.”

James flies through memories like a broom through the clouds. He’s in second year, giving Sirius a t-shirt with a Muggle rock band on it for his birthday and watching his best friend’s face light up. He’s in fourth year, sharing Effie’s homemade Bakewell tart with Sirius on the train and laughing at how many slices the boy could eat. He’s in last term, raising an imaginary toast to losing the Quidditch Cup and knowing the importance of Sirius sharing his cave with them all, a space that was for once all his own. That was, for once, safe.

Maybe it was worth it. To love Sirius, even briefly. To suffer all this hurt, knowing that it used to be care. An abundance of it.

***

The Hog’s Head is in peak form when Andromeda enters – dark, dirty, and dingy. Her shoes keep getting stuck on the floor in mysterious clumps of coagulated liquid that she can’t identify by sight because the thick layers of grime covering the windows prevent most natural light from permeating the room.

Still, it’s the best place to have an inconspicuous meeting. People here are odd – evidenced by the cloaked vampire rocking a small, unidentified bundle in his arms at the bar – but they mind their business.

Andromeda gives the place a once over, spotting her party at a table in the far corner. She makes her way over quickly, and McGonagall rises to greet her. Alphard is already here.

“Apologies for running late,” Andromeda says, tying her hair back. “My daughter was being fussy and I couldn’t get her to sleep.”

McGonagall puts a hand on her shoulder. “How is Nymphadora?” she asks, and Andromeda smiles tiredly back at her. “A handful. But a loveable one.”

McGonagall returns her smile, but it’s tinged with sadness.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she tells Andromeda, and Andromeda knows it’s genuine in a way that so many other people’s condolences haven’t been. Probably because Minerva understands what this loss means. Understands who Sirius was.

“Yours, too,” she replies, and McGonagall gives her a wistful nod. 

Andromeda takes the empty seat next to Alphard, and he knocks his elbow into hers gently. She knocks his back. It’s always been their sign – at family gatherings when she was so young and Alphard was still welcome, and then at his apartment in Paris when she was older and he wasn’t welcome anymore and neither was she. He’d knock his elbow into hers, like a gentle reminder that he was there, that he could see beyond the facade of the rest of their family. Something to ground her. Something discreet.

“Thank you for meeting us,” Alphard starts. “And thank your parents as well. I understand you’re on strict orders to remain in the castle, and I appreciate them making the exception.”

Across the table, James, Remus, and Peter stare back at them, looking slightly nervous and fairly uncomfortable. Andromeda knows none of them want to relive this. Knows these are the worst possible circumstances under which to meet, but it’s too late to mourn that now. There are bigger things to grieve.

She also knows how she looks – too much like Bellatrix. People who know her sister always greet her with fear, looks overriding logic. She doesn’t think she’ll ever manage to escape that.

“Sirius used to write about you,” she announces. “In his letters.” She pauses, making eye contact with each of them in turn. “You seem like good friends.” The boys visibly relax, their shoulders and gazes dropping down a bit.

“Was he happy?” Alphard blurts out, his voice a bundle of desperation. “Did he have a good…was he happy here?”

“Yes,” James answers immediately. “We all were. He made everything better.” He shrugs, biting his cheek. “He was Sirius.” Peter nods at that, sniffling once.

“He told me there was someone,” Alphard continues. “Someone he loved, someone he was in love with . Is she…do you know her?”

There’s a tense moment where James’ eyes get big and Peter sucks in a sharp breath, but it’s gone in a flash. Andromeda feels her eyes narrow, taking note as the other boys all turn their attention to Remus.

Remus, for his part, seems perfectly calm. 

“Yes,” he tells Alphard. “We know her.” He looks down to his hands for a second, an odd expression tugging at his mouth. It’s too dark in the room for Andromeda to fully decipher it, and it's disappeared by the time Remus looks back up. “She loves him very much. Even now.”

Alphard lets out a slow breath, nodding his gratitude. “Thank you. Thank you all.”

They fall silent, and Peter begins to gulp his Butterbeer, his fingers twitching anxiously on the handle.

“How bad was it?” Remus asks suddenly. James’ head snaps up sharply, his face attentive and expectant.

Alphard opens his mouth, then closes it. He looks to Andromeda and she raises her eyebrows, encouraging him to speak, but when he does, all he says is, “I’m not sure it’s best for you to know –”

“It could get very bad,” Andromeda interrupts him. Alphard shoots her a warning look but she ignores it. The boys have already heard a lot of it during the trial. And they have a right to know. She’s done keeping the confidences of the House of Black. “They would use curses to cut and burn. They would invade our minds. Take our secrets. Nothing is sacred in that family. You never knew what would happen next, but you knew it would hurt.”

James lets out a noise like an injured animal. McGonagall’s frown deepens.

“I did what I could to protect him. So did Alphard.”

“Thank you,” Remus tells her, meeting her gaze and holding it. There’s something so fervent there, so sincere, and it clicks in the back of her mind. Why the boys all looked to him when Alphard mentioned someone Sirius loved, why Remus had that odd look on his face as he talked about “her.” 

Remus is the one Sirius loved. Sirius is the one Remus loved.

The realization falls over her like a gentle rain, and she finds that she’s not shocked or confused or in disbelief. She just feels…grateful. Soothed, somehow. And she can’t help it as a little laugh fights its way out of her mouth, startling the rest of the table.

Sirius’ last act of rebellion. His pièce de résistance. How wonderful.

Quiet blankets them once more and McGonagall checks her watch. 

“It’s best we be getting back,” she tells the boys. “Finish your drinks and we’ll make it in time for dinner.”

While the boys finish their Butterbeers, Andromeda knocks her elbow once more into Alphard’s and he responds in kind. 

“Come see us for tea on Sunday?” she asks. “Nymphadora misses you.”

He nods at her, offering a slight smile that crinkles the skin around his eyes. She returns the smile, bids McGonagall and the boys farewell, and then heads for the door. Just as she makes it out into the heat, big blue clouds looming above in the endless sky, James calls her name. She turns around, and he’s rushing out of the door after her, a boldness in his gaze.

“Do you know what’s going to happen to Regulus?” he asks, and Andromeda feels a piece of her rib break off and tumble deep, deep down into the pit of her stomach, landing like a stone. She knew this was coming. Knew it was inevitable. But it still feels like sinking.

Beneath her skin, the undercurrent of darkness sizzles and nips. 

“He said he’d have to make a choice.” James’ voice is pleading. 

Andromeda steels herself, closing her eyes for a moment to find that impossible strength within.

“Regulus is a lost cause.” She tries to say it gently, averting her gaze from James’ so she won’t have to see the betrayal flood his features. Walburga and Orion’s claws are too deep into Regulus, especially after Sirius’ death. This is only the beginning, only the initial catalyst for a series of gradually darker and more horrific events.

“Like Narcissa?” James challenges, his words hard as the stone in her stomach.

It feels like a curse hitting her body, like cuts and burns and pain. Sudden and cruel.

Oh, Narcissa. Oh, her baby sister. 

Andromeda can’t pull her out unless Narcissa is willing to be pulled, but Narcissa isn’t willing to do anything, isn’t willing to choose either way. She folds so easily, so delicately. Andromeda wants to reach down, to grasp her sister’s hand and yank her up out of the bottom of that murky black water and into the startling light of day, but Narcissa hasn’t extended her hand. She’s standing on that precipice, looking up and down, feeling the water pull her under and the wind pull her upward, and she sways with it, never making a decision. Never leaving that limbo.

Narcissa , Andromeda thinks again, repeating her name like a wish. Like a hope.

“Exactly.”

***

Things are eerily quiet, and it’s setting Sirius on edge. There are only three days left until they go back to Hogwarts, and today is half over already, so it’s really more like two and a half. He’ll be home soon. He’s almost made it through the winter holiday.

“Father wants to see you in his study,” Regulus tells him softly, lingering in the doorway to Sirius’ bedroom, but despite his gentle tone, Sirius still startles from where he’s lounging in bed. It makes him bang his head against the headboard and he swears, a deep ache spreading through his skull.

“Why?” he asks, ignoring the sharpness in his own voice. It’s just fear, mangled into anger.

Regulus just shrugs, already turning around to leave. And then he pauses, looks over his shoulder, and says in a voice that’s trying too hard to be emotionless, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

***

“Your mother thinks you’ll make us proud, with some guidance,” Orion tells Sirius, walking slow circles around the room so Sirius’ gaze can never linger on his face for too long. Sirius is seated in the black velvet chair across from the desk in his father’s office. The fireplace is on and it’s toasty in the room, the velvet upholstery surrounding him like a suffocating cloak.

“She says you’re ready.” Orion stops for a moment, the wood beneath his feet ceasing its creaking. And then his pace resumes once more. “I’ve often found that pushing someone into the water is an effective method for testing such readiness. They’ll either sink or swim.”

Sirius can taste it in his mouth – the saltwater. The way it overwhelmed his senses, clogged his nostrils and burned his skin until all he could breathe, all he could feel, was the sea. He couldn’t save either of them, himself or Regulus. Bellatrix just kept pulling them deeper.

“Have you ever heard of Fenrir Greyback?” his father asks from somewhere behind him, and Sirius is glad Orion can’t see the way his face must be visibly paling right now. “He’s an acquaintance. A half-breed. Normally I wouldn’t associate with such creatures, but, well, needs must. You see, the wonderful thing about Greyback is that he’s a werewolf,” Orion’s voice spits the word out in electrified disgust, “and that’s all he’ll ever be. A soulless, blood-thirsty animal. And oh, does he do it well.”

This is a trap. Sirius can feel the metal door closing on him, can feel the lock turning until it reaches its final, irrevocable click. His pulse is rocking through his body, rapidly jolting upward and upward, and he feels dizzy, trying to follow the circling sound of his father’s voice, trying to extricate himself from the sweaty velvet surrounding him.

“I told you over the summer that you would have to make choices soon.”

Sirius thought they’d been trusting him a bit more, his mother at least. He thought they’d wait. Maybe disown him or scar him or throw him down a flight of steps. Let him run away and slash his name off the tapestry. 

But not this. Not by force.

He manages to steady himself for a moment, to move his sluggish tongue and say, in a hollow voice, “I’m not seventeen yet.”

“It seems that doesn’t pose an issue any longer,” Orion replies nonchalantly, and Sirius deflates like a balloon, sinking deeper into his chair. The walls of the room start to look fuzzy. “You see, Sirius, the Dark Lord has needs . And once you’ve gotten the mark, all you’ll ever be is a Death Eater. You’ll either assume the role or not, but you’ll forever be marked as one of us. As one of the righteous. And Dumbledore,” he says venomously, “and whoever else may be whispering in your ear, will never welcome you back, no matter how much innocence you claim.”

His father laughs, and it sounds like the crack of a whip.

“The Dark Lord won't actually trust you with any information, but that won't matter. Do you think you’ll be welcome at that school with his mark on your arm? Whatever life you think you had, whatever path you foresaw, won't exist any longer. You’ll either fall in line or you won't, but you'll forever be a Death Eater, and nothing more.”

And then he stops behind the desk, directly in front of Sirius, and leans down closer and closer, until Sirius swears the man must be able to see the dark spots floating in his vision.

“Think of it this way,” Orion concludes, an uncanny smirk settling over his lips, “come tomorrow, you won’t need to be afraid anymore.”

Chapter Text

My love is power , James reminds himself as he waits for Regulus to finish flying laps around the Quidditch pitch. 

My love is power , he whispers under his breath as he lurks outside the changing rooms, watching for Regulus to emerge.

My love is power , he repeats over and over again as he jumps out from the side of the building and grabs Regulus’ elbow before the boy has a chance to process what’s going on.

The sun is already setting and most of the other students are at dinner right now, celebrating the end of exams, but James has neglected the meal to search for Regulus instead. Andromeda may think he’s a lost cause, but James refuses to give up. He needs answers. He deserves them. And he only has two days left to get them before term ends.

It’s been nearly impossible to find Regulus alone over the past three weeks, but James has finally managed it, and he’s not going to squander his only chance.

Regulus whips around and glares at him, tugging his arm out of James’ grip. His temples are beaded with sweat and his face is flushed from the summer heat, and James stutters for a moment before blurting out, “Hi!”

Regulus’ glare intensifies. “What do you want?” he demands, but James has spent enough time with him this term to see the heartache hiding behind the anger.

“Tell me what’s going to happen,” James begs. “Tell me what choice you have to make.” There’s no time to beat around the bush. 

Regulus’ eyes soften. His face evens out into a pleasant but blank expression. He drops his broom to the ground and sighs – something long and drawn out that expands and then compresses his whole chest.

“You know what choice,” he says quietly, not meeting James’ eye. “And I already made it.”

Vines of panic climb up James’ skin, wrapping and twisting and squeezing. He is ensnared by them, halted. They dig into his flesh, scraping against his neck and writhing in his hair. Pulling, harder and harder until his body doesn’t feel like his own anymore. 

James can’t know. He can’t. Because if he does, then that means…

“The mark?” he gasps out. “You’re going to get it?” 

Regulus’ empty face doesn’t change. And all of a sudden, James wants to punch him, wants to break through that facade of aloofness, of untouchableness, wants to smash it into a million pieces until he finds the real Regulus beneath it, bloody and raw and hurting. Anything would be better than this. Anything.

“You’re a coward!” James screams at him, lunging forward, and Regulus scrambles backwards, the mask finally cracking, his eyes blazing fury. “This is the coward’s way out!”

“What does it matter?!” Regulus yells back. “What does any of it matter anymore?” He rushes forward, getting so close to James that James can see every individual eyelash framing his grey irises. Regulus’ voice drops low, quiet. “Even if we’d won the trial, even if they were locked up, it wouldn't matter. He’s always going to be gone. Don’t you get that?”

James reaches out a vine-covered hand, trying to cup Regulus' cheek, to hold it with the sort of tender kindness the boy must be starving for, but Regulus turns his head, rejecting the touch.

“You don’t have to be a Death Eater,” James chokes out. “You don’t have to –”

Regulus scoffs loudly, retreating again and crossing his arms. His mask is back in place and the vines squeeze tighter around James. The sky above them is a brilliant orange now, like an eruption of flames.

“Maybe if you’d told the truth during the trial, you wouldn’t be in this situation,” James mumbles under his breath, desperation fermenting into annoyance. Regulus hears him, looking for one startling second like someone has stabbed him in the gut, his face losing all color, before he recovers, crinkling his nose into a snarl. 

“Don’t you get it?” he spits. There’s a halo of dying sunlight over his head. “You want to know the truth of that night?”

There is a frozen moment in time when the sunlight becomes blinding, the gentle chirping of the birds becomes deafening, and the ground underneath James’ feet becomes unsteady. 

No, he thinks in anguish. No!  

He doesn’t want to know what happened. For all of his wonder over the past few months, all of his questions and pleas, he doesn’t think he could bear it now, to know the truth. To know how Sirius died.

But Regulus makes the choice anyway.

“They wanted him to get the mark and he refused, so they tortured him until he died.”

James isn’t sure what happens next. There’s a sensation of falling, and then scratchy grass beneath his back, and then Regulus is looming over him, looking like a corpse reanimated. 

“That’s why he was running away,” Regulus continues. “He knew what was coming. I heard them arguing about it. It’s what woke me up.” His eyes are fixed on a blade of grass by James’ shoe but he doesn’t seem to be seeing it. There’s a haze over him, as if his body is here, but his mind is back in that house.

“They caught him leaving. His trunk was at the back of the library.” Regulus’ words start slurring, but James knows he isn’t drunk right now. “He said he’d never get the mark, and they were so mad. Father grabbed his arms and he tried to yank them away, he was kicking and scratching and trying to get free, and he did for a moment, but then his hand flew out and it hit Mother, knocking her into a bookshelf, and then –” He gasps in dramatically, swaying back and forth, and James gathers his own strength, hopping up to ease the other boy to the ground. Regulus doesn’t acknowledge James’ touch.

“There was a Crucio. And another. He was spasming. I thought they would stop. I thought they would stop. But then his head…” A skull fracture from blunt force trauma. “It hit the side of a bookshelf.” Regulus is breathing shallowly. “There was a really loud crack . And then blood. A lot of blood. And Father told me to check his pulse, but there wasn’t one anymore.” 

Regulus’ body crumples in on itself, and he tumbles sideways into the grass, his eyelids sliding closed. 

“I tried to find it,” he whispers, over and over again. “I checked the trunk, but I couldn't find it, I couldn’t find the wand, I’m sorry, I tried to find it, but I couldn’t. I found the letter, I promise I did, I found it, Sirius, but I couldn’t find the wand. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

Tears slide silently from beneath the boy’s closed eyes, and he keeps murmuring into the grass, James’ heart stopping every time Sirius’ name falls from his lips. Around them, the sunlit flames extinguish themselves, fading into a gray ash that blankets them suffocatingly.

James reaches out a trembling hand, hesitating a moment before placing it on Regulus’ head and running it soothingly through his hair. He does it over and over and over.

“What letter?” James whispers, when Regulus finally stops murmuring, but the boy doesn’t answer.

The vines binding James turn to snapping, fanged mouths, and they rip and bite and tear. All he can see is his best friend, terrified at the prospect of becoming a Death Eater, shrieking and scrambling on the unforgiving ground, writhing in a pain incomprehensible, all his love and joy and brilliance turned to hot, oozing blood and the world-shattering stillness of a soul-deserted body.

He weeps, and time slips away.

***

When the tears finally ease, the air has turned cool. Someone will come looking for them soon. It’s getting late, and night is beginning to fall. 

Regulus pushes the weight of his body up onto his palm, gazing at James with clearer eyes. He swallows once, his mouth dragging downwards into a solemn frown. James’ hand is still resting on his hair.

“I don’t think they intended to kill him,” he croaks out. “They just wanted to scare him. They just wanted him to take the mark.”

“For Sirius, that would’ve been the same thing as killing him,” James breathes, and Regulus makes a noise of distress. “Why didn’t he use his wand?” James asks, despair clouding the words. “Why didn’t he use it to fight back?”

“They’d been looking for it,” Regulus tells him. “All holiday. But he’d kept it well hidden. They always take our wands from us whenever we go home.” And then, so quiet James barely catches it, “I think he really thought he’d be able to make it out.”

“Why didn't you say any of this at the trial?” It’s not accusatory anymore, it’s just mournful. “You knew what the argument was about. You knew they were Death Eaters.”

Regulus freezes for a moment beneath James’ palm, and then extricates himself from the hold, standing upright abruptly and dusting off his robes. He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice is stern, his words clear and crisp.

“Because we still would’ve lost. And I’d probably be dead too if I’d told.”

James leaps to his feet. “They could’ve prosecuted them for being Death Eaters, for recruiting Sirius to be one,” he argues.

Regulus barks out a laugh, and James’ head rushes with the constant emotional changes of the other boy.

“Don't you get it? They bribed people in the Wizengamot. They paid off half the Ministry! And some of those people are already Death Eaters themselves! My family has too much power. There was only ever one ending to this, and the rest was all just for show.” His voice is rising higher and higher, until it turns into a sort of screech. “As soon as Sirius’ skull hit that bookshelf, he was dead. Instantly. And then it was all over. Nothing was ever going to happen in response. I'm sorry you were foolish enough to hope differently.” He yanks up his broom off the ground.

“Please don't take the mark!” James implores. “This isn't what Sirius would’ve wanted!”

“Sirius is dead!” Regulus snarls, and it ricochets off the stars above, bouncing from one to the next until it drops back down onto James like a strike of lightning. “He doesn't want anything anymore.”

James whimpers, the electricity splitting him open again and again.

But his love is power. His love is power.

“I care about you,” he pleads.

Regulus shakes his head agitatedly.

“Did you really think we could be together? I'm the heir now. I can’t be the heir and a faggot,” he spits.

“Don’t say that,” James reprimands.

Regulus grips the handle of his broom until his white knuckles bulge.

“I’m sorry, James. I'm sorry for it all. I wish he was alive. I wish he was alive and that you’d never talked to me that night by the lake. I wish I'd never kissed you. I wish I’d drowned in that water as a kid. I wish no one had ever tried to save me.”

“Regulus –”

“Goodbye, James,” Regulus says with a finality, turning to leave the Quidditch pitch. Before James can say something to stop him, he shuffles back around, shoving a hand into his pocket and dragging it back out with a piece of folded parchment gripped tightly between his fingers. He stares at the parchment for an agonizing second before turning his head away and holding it out to James.

“I was going to keep this, but it’s yours.”

James accepts it hesitantly.

“What is –” The letter Regulus was mumbling about earlier. The one of Sirius’ that he found.

Regulus starts walking away, his silhouette disappearing into the darkness.

“Regulus!” James calls desperately after him, but the boy doesn’t look back. Not even once.

***

The day before the Hogwarts Express scatters them all back to their separate lives, injecting distance and disconnection between them, they gather in Sirius’ cave, the one he found so wondrous, where they met all those months ago to lament together for a very different reason.

The fractals of light that poke through the bushes at the cave’s entrance dance across the stone walls, like a cosmic disco ball. It’s so beautiful here, so peaceful, and Remus hopes that this is what death feels like – calm and gentle, like a welcoming rest after the longest day. He hopes the earth beneath Sirius feels like a soft bed, that the nature buzzing around him forms a soothing symphony.

Remus has had this idea since the beginning of June, since they all got drunk after Slytherin won the Quidditch Cup, but he's been waiting until after exams to see it through. They didn’t get to have a proper funeral for Sirius. They didn’t get to say goodbye. 

So this is Remus doing what he can. This is Remus letting himself mourn. Letting them all mourn.

James, Peter, Lily, Mary, and Marlene are all watching him expectantly from their perches on various stones and grassy patches of ground. Remus swallows with some effort, feeling nervousness creep up on him all of a sudden. He clears his throat and runs a hand over the side of his neck in an attempt to ease his increasing pulse.

“When we were in second year, there was one day where Sirius kept whispering to me in Charms. I don’t remember what he was saying, but I remember that Flitwick kept sending us pointed looks to be quiet and Sirius just wasn’t getting it, and I kept hissing at him to shut up, which only egged him on further.” Remus releases the tiniest little laugh, just a whoosh of breath really, recalling the memory.

“Flitwick gave us both Saturday detention and I was so furious about it. He made us help the house elves do laundry the entire day, sorting all the dirty clothes into piles, which easily could’ve been done with a snap of their fingers instead,” he grumbles.

“I was giving Sirius the cold shoulder all morning, and after we came back from lunch, he just looked at me and sighed and then started singing 'For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow' right there in the middle of the room. All the house elves stopped to stare at him, and I kept telling him it was enough, to just get back to work, but he just kept singing that bloody song over and over, louder and louder.” He laughs again, something fuller this time. The echo of Sirius’ singing voice tickles at his ear.

“He begged me to sing it with him. Wouldn’t stop until I did.” Remus shakes his head fondly, then shrugs. “So finally I did. And then it was impossible to be cross at him anymore.” Across the cave, James is smiling at him.

“If anyone else would’ve done that, I would’ve gone off on them. Would’ve absolutely lost it. But there was just something about him.” Remus’ throat starts to tighten, but he ignores it. “He always knew how to get me out of my head, especially when I was in a mood. Every time I was in hospital, he was by my side. Without a question. Every moment with him, it just felt…more alive, somehow.”

“He did what he wanted,” James adds, adjusting his crooked glasses from where they sit on the bridge of his nose. “He always lived life how he saw fit, regardless of what anyone else thought. I always thought that was so brave of him. I really admired that.” There are tears in James’ eyes, but he doesn’t let them fall. “He always stood up for what he believed, no matter the consequences.”

“I mix pumpkin juice and milk because of him,” Marlene blurts out, and Remus’ eyes snap over to her flushed face. He has so many questions. 

Marlene giggles. “I saw him do it once at breakfast a few years ago and thought it looked gross, but he convinced me to try it, claimed it tasted creamier, and honestly, he wasn’t wrong.”

“I’ve seen you drink that,” Mary protests, “and it is gross.”

Marlene sticks her tongue out at Mary and Mary blows her a kiss in response. An odd sort of warmth begins to bubble deep down in Remus.

“I must’ve borrowed a hundred little habits from him,” James says. “The way he’d do a flip on his broom every time we scored during a Quidditch match, the way he’d curse in French when he was annoyed, the way he’d fold his jumpers with the sleeves criss-crossing on top. I do all that now. Have been for years.”

“He used to tutor me in Potions, even though he hated it,” Peter murmurs. “I made him keep it a secret, because I was ashamed, but I really needed the help, and he never made a big deal about it.”

“He was a good person,” Mary agrees.

They all nod or hum or sniffle, lost in their separate memories of Sirius.  

“I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone more than I love him,” James reveals, finally letting a single tear break free. Remus watches it roll down his cheek and disappear into the collar of his t-shirt. “And I don't think it will ever stop hurting, but I guess that's the price for knowing him, and loving him.”

“He was worth it,” Lily declares.

“And more,” James agrees.

Remus closes his eyes, thinks about the promise he made last term. Thinks about the time he shared with Sirius – the moonlit conversations, the secret kisses, the careless, impulsive adventures.

Sirius knew him, all of him, even the parts he didn’t want anyone to know. Sirius saw them and it didn’t matter because Sirius loved him anyway. Sirius loved him.

“I found him,” Remus says softly, almost under his breath, but everyone’s focus turns towards him anyway. “I found him in this lifetime. And I’ll find him in the next.” James’ gaze finds his, and an acknowledgement passes between them. They both loved Sirius. They both hold pieces of him. And now they need to move into this new world, this heartbreaking world without him, but they can do it together. They need to do it together, not apart.

“I’ve been searching for him everywhere,” James adds, still holding Remus’ eye. “But he’s been with me the whole time.”

Remus smiles, but he can feel the way the expression lets a bit of sadness ooze from the sides of his mouth. “Sirius lived in a way that even death couldn’t conquer. He’s living on in all of us.”

Murmurs of agreement come from the others, and then they all fall quiet. They stay there for a while, watching the spots of light linger on the cave walls and breathing in lungfuls of the warm, earthy air. Leaves are rustling in the wind somewhere outside of view and a cool breeze combs through Remus’ hair not long after.

A noise catches his attention and he looks up to see James pulling a piece of parchment out of his pocket. The boy stares at it for a while, and then sighs softly.

“He wrote me a letter that night,” James divulges. Remus’ stomach flips itself inside out. 

James chews on his bottom lip for a moment, then sighs again, unfolds the parchment, and begins to read.

***

Panic is an interesting feeling. One that is seemingly at odds with itself. It makes Sirius feel light-headed one minute, floaty and disconnected, his limbs distant and detached, and then alert the next, his movements rushed and frantic and a jumble of thoughts speeding rapidly through his mind.

It’s a high high, and a low low, and Sirius feels it all, bracing himself against the ebbs and flows of the panic as he waits in agony in his bedroom for night to finally tumble down on top of them all, sweeping his parents off to sleep and leaving Sirius his only chance to free himself from the threat of the Dark Lord’s arrival tomorrow.

He packs his trunk painfully slowly, moving as quietly as he can. He takes only what he needs, not wanting the weight to drag him down. Floo is his preferred method of escape, but there’s a chance he’ll need to just run out into the night on foot, and he’s not going to risk it.

He grabs a spare bit of parchment and scribbles down a note to James. When he arrives at the Potters’, he knows the boy will have a billion questions, but he’s not sure he’ll be up for answering them all just yet. This will explain things. And in case the Floo doesn't work, he can mail it by owl so James knows he’s coming. He folds the letter when it’s done and tucks it into the pocket of a pair of robes in his trunk.

James will read it soon. They’ll be together, soon.

There’s only one more thing he needs: his wand. The item his father has been searching for so violently. The piece of hollow wood that’s caused so much distress.

He tiptoes into the hallway, holding his breath. It’s empty, but he waits for five minutes anyway, straining to hear anything that might indicate awakeness. 

Regulus’ room is right past the bathroom at the end of the corridor. Sirius measures his steps. The panic is back to that dreamy dizziness, and he feels as if he’s walking through clouds in the sky. None of it seems real. He feels untouchable somehow, like he’s just a collective memory, a figment of someone else’s imagination.

It’s so quiet and so still. Everything is muted by the fear.

And then he’s creaking his brother’s door open and Regulus is lying on his bed, curled under the covers in a ball, making himself tiny. Sirius forces his feet to shuffle forward into the room until he’s opening the closet and slipping inside, gliding over to the back wall, and extending his arm up to reach the top shelf hidden behind racks of clothes.

There, concealed in an old, forgotten Quidditch glove of Regulus’ is Sirius’ wand. There’s a heavy book on top – something Sirius “borrowed” from the Hogwarts library right before the holiday – to keep the glove in place, to prevent the wand from squirming out in case his father tried to Accio it.

It’s the perfect hiding spot. Sirius knows this because it’s where Regulus used to hide, when they were younger, and he wasn’t so accustomed to the sound of curses and crying.

Sirius always made sure the blood was gone before he went looking for his brother. And he’d always find him in here, huddled in the back corner, his blotchy face shoved into his knees. He’d give Sirius an accusatory look, either for finding him or for angering their parents in the first place, and Sirius would smile back at him, fighting past the pain in his own body to offer something comforting to his brother, and Regulus would scramble over to him on uncoordinated legs and shove his face into Sirius’ shoulder instead and Sirius would run his hands down the boy’s back, trying to calm him.

That was a long time ago. 

But it’s still a good hiding spot. And it’s the last place Orion would look.

Sirius looks over at his brother now, only the top of Regulus’ curly hair peeking out from under the blankets. He can almost hear his brother’s words, that petulant tone telling him not to do anything stupid. And to Regulus, this would definitely be stupid.

But Sirius is not his brother, and never has been. He’s not sure what happened exactly, where along the way Regulus decided that safety meant more than freedom. Perhaps that’s a normal thing to think, and it’s an oddity that Sirius would risk anything, would risk his life, just to live it in the way he wants.

Regulus wouldn’t mind it, Sirius thinks. Being labeled a Death Eater. His brother would fall in line as if he were a domino. He’s already given his wand, without so much as a second thought. What more is his soul? What more does it matter if it means avoiding those curses and crying? Escaping that closet?

He watches Regulus sleep for a few moments more, seeing the huddle of covers rise and fall steadily.

His brother will be okay here, without him. Their alliance has always been more for Sirius’ sake anyway. And they’ll see each other at Hogwarts. Maybe Sirius will even show him his cave. 

Still, as his feet step over the threshold of the doorway, leaving Regulus and his gentle breathing to the world of dreams, Sirius can’t help the deep chasm that splits open in his gut, never to be filled again.

***

The lines in his calf are deep red and swollen. Pus leaks from the bottom one. He can usually ignore the stinging, but if he does need to run tonight, it’ll be best if the cuts are healed. 

He stares at his wand, contemplating. It would be underage magic, if he tried, but the panic has returned to frenzy, and it’s urging him on. What does it matter right now if he uses one little healing spell? Surely the Wizengamot wouldn’t expel him for that.

He huffs decidedly, picks up the wand, and whispers the words, staring intently at the remains of the raids. He envisions the skin fading, smoothing out, closing over. He can practically feel the soothing afterglow spread through his leg, cleaning and cooling and comforting.

But nothing moves, and nothing changes, his calf remaining as stagnant as the night. He’s never quite been able to master the spells he’d asked Madam Pomfrey about. And it almost makes him laugh, the idea of his father so worried, so angered, about the possibility that Sirius might use his magic just to botch up an attempt to mend himself.

Sirius casts an eye to the window. The moon is hanging low, its glow piercing. It’s nearly time.

He buries the wand in his trunk as far down as he can. If they find it, they’ll snap it in half.

He’s not planning to use it tonight. He’ll either Floo or he’ll flee on foot, but he’ll leave magic out of it. Better he has his wand once he’s left the house anyway.

He creeps down the stairs, around the corner, and into the library. He stands in front of the fireplace, placing his trunk down next to him.

And suddenly, it’s not panic anymore. It’s euphoria. It races through him in a jolt, rushing around his blood, laughing through his veins. He’s giddy with it, his breaths coming heavy and fast. He’s going to make it out. He’s really going to do it.

He feels around the mantel for the jar of Floo powder and shoves his hand inside, but there’s nothing there. Remnants of the silvery substance stick to his fingers, sparkling like stardust.

By foot, then. He whirls around, about to grab the handle of his trunk, when an abrupt whirring sound makes him freeze. He instinctively dives out of the way, missing the curse’s impact by seconds. He lands in a heap on the relentless ground, feeling bruises begin to form on his knees and elbows.

When he scrambles to his feet, Orion is towering in front of him, face enraged and body trembling. All of that giddy euphoria, all of those high highs, come crumbling down. At once, Sirius is pure, abject terror.

Of course it was a trap, he realizes. Of course Orion would be watching his every move after that speech. 

His father throws a few more spells, and Sirius dodges them, swerving this way and that, moving further and further through the room until his trunk is all the way on the other side. He hides between bookshelves, running from one to the next until Orion finally corners him between two shelves and the wall. 

“Just let me go!” Sirius blurts out, begging. “I won’t cause any trouble. I won’t tell anyone anything.”

“That’s not an option,” Orion’s voice booms out, like the decree of a merciless deity. “Your fate is decided.”

A movement in the corner of his eye catches Sirius’ attention and he shifts his gaze for a split-second, the chasm in him cracking even further as those same dark curls that were peeking out of the sheets earlier now emerge from around the corner of the bookshelf to his right. 

Beside Regulus, Walburga is standing tense and alarmed.

“I’ll never do it,” Sirius gasps, trying to sound forceful, but only managing a mere whimper. He was so close. “I’ll never get the mark. I’ll never be a Death Eater.”

Orion’s face contorts into something odd – vicious and amused. He lets out a menacing laugh, raising his wand slowly until the tip is pointing directly at Sirius’ chest.

“ Perhaps you need some motivation.”

When the Crucio hits, it is blinding. Every nerve inside Sirius is on fire. His limbs stretch and contort, trying futilely to escape the pain. His knees buckle, his body caves. His mouth is open, screaming and gnashing and frothing. The pain keeps growing, rising and rising until Sirius is sure he can’t survive more, and then it rises again.

And then, with the careless flick of a wand, it is over. 

“The Dark Lord will be here tomorrow,” Orion grounds out, “and you will extend your arm.”

Walburga moves forward towards Orion, placing herself next to him, but angling her own body slightly away. It’s not quite fear on her face, but it’s something uneasy.

Sirius isn’t sure where the strength comes from, but he feels it well up from the bottom of that chasm, bubbling and boiling until it flows over the top and he jumps up to his feet, lunging forward with a jolt of energy and knocking his body as hard as he can into Orion’s. His fingers scramble towards his father’s hand, grabbing for the wand with which they were once broken.

He gets a grip on it and yanks, managing to dislodge it for a second, and he’s going to break it in two, going to destroy its evil, sickening power. 

Walburga is watching it all unfold, standing frozen like she did during every nightly raid, and Sirius thinks for a second that she’s going to grab the wand out of his hand, but she doesn’t, she just stares at him incredulously, as if all his power, all his miraculous strength, was unknown to her.

And then Orion is kicking his legs out from under him and yanking him back up by his shoulders. Sirius screeches with the sudden pain of it, giving Orion a moment to regain his wand. He pins Sirius’ arms behind his back, crushing them beneath a furious grip. 

Despite the wand his father now has against his neck, Sirius rebels against him, stomping and jerking and flailing his limbs as much as he can. His nails break skin, digging as deep as they can, searching for the red rivulets that must prove his father’s humanity.

He manages to get an arm free and he swings it out beside him until it connects with something solid. It triggers a banging noise, and Sirius squirms wildly around, trying to see what’s happening. 

And then he sees it, and he thinks his heart stops. 

Walburga is leaning against the side of the bookshelf, one hand gripping the shoulder that must’ve just collided with the wood. That Sirius just made collide with the wood. There’s reproach in her eyes, mingled with a wild fear that’s staring pale-faced at Orion. 

Sirius’ father bares his teeth, snarling, and the cursed word rings out just as the pain consumes Sirius once more.

He’s shrieking, over and over, spasming around on the ground. He tastes blood, feels bones shatter. It stops and it starts, the moments in between almost worse than the moments of pain. 

Sirius can’t catch his breath, and there’s this overwhelming feeling of suffocation that overtakes his mind. He’s going to asphyxiate right here, going to drown from the inside out, forever gasping for something that won’t be granted.

“Do it,” he hears his father command from somewhere above him, and his mother takes a shuddering breath. “He needs to learn a lesson.”

There is a moment of hesitation, and then his mother speaks the curse and the earth comes shattering down around him. It continues, his father taking over again at some point.

It reaches a peak, each incoming second more unbearable than the next, and he loses control over his body. It’s flailing all over the place, broken and bloodied and bruised.

His head crashes into something hard, and it’s worse than anything before has ever been. 

And the curse finally stops.

Sirius gasps in a breath, waiting for the pain to dull into a sting, like he always does, and it begins to dim. Everything becomes fuzzy, a profound blackness creeping forth, inhabiting all of his senses. He is deep, deep down, darkness enclosing around him, and everything starts to fade.

He can’t hear, he can’t see, he can’t feel. 

There is peacefulness for a moment.

And everything fades.

Chapter Text

James,

There’s a lot I have to tell you, and I’ll tell it all to you soon, but for now, just know that I’m okay. I don’t know what I’ll look like when I see you, but you don’t need to be frightened. It’s all going to be good now. 

If Remus comes asking about me, tell him I’m fine, and that I’ll see him at Hogwarts. In fact, tell him he can find me at Hogwarts. That he always finds me. He’ll understand what that means.

I expect I’ll be staying at yours for a bit, so thank your parents for me please. It’ll be great to live together, won’t it? Like brothers. We can fly in the garden every day and stay up past midnight and sleep in late the next morning and have proper family dinners and be as loud as we want whenever we want. It’s going to be so wonderful. And there’s no one I’d rather share it with. I can’t wait.

I promise I’m okay. Please don’t worry for me. I’ll see you soon (if I’m not already there).

Sirius

***

Sunlight dapples the cave’s walls, lending a splendid glow to the dim space. It’s so calm here, so peaceful. Time passes by him easily. Hours, days, years slide by in the blink of an eye or the sigh of a breath. He flows with it like a wave on its cosmic ocean. He always seems to hover above the water, never sinking in. 

It wasn’t a shock, to be here. Nothing is a shock anymore. No panic plagues him, no fear presses like a stone against his heart. All is well. All is good.

“How are the stars tonight?” he asks Remus, and Remus smiles sadly at him, but it doesn’t bother Sirius. 

“Exquisite,” Remus replies. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out something bright and glowing. “I caught one for you.”

Sirius admires it for a moment, watching how its shine illuminates the entire cave, making everything sparkle with magic.

“Put it back, would you?” he asks. “Stars are meant to be free.”

Remus nods obligingly, stepping outside the cave for a moment to release the star back into the sky. Sirius doesn’t worry. Remus will return.

“I can’t stay for long,” Remus laments, when he steps back inside, “but I’ll be back soon. I promise it will seem soon.”

“Take your time,” Sirius tells him. “I don’t mind waiting. Not here.”

Here, where birdsong soothes him like a distant lullabye and the earth smells young and new and unburdened.

“I’ll find you again,” Remus promises, and Sirius smiles, his whole being consumed with light. He has no doubt that Remus will.

***

James smells of cinnamon when he arrives. His hair is a wild mess. His glasses are smudged and crooked on his face. His grin is bold and brash, full of energy and mischief.

He’s a bit out of breath, his cheeks reddened and his chest pulsing. He’s clutching a broom in his right hand.

“I’ve just been for the best fly,” he declares and Sirius laughs. 

“You say that every fly.”

James shrugs. “They’re all the best then.”

Sirius hums affectionately.

“We had good times, didn’t we?” James asks. He runs his free hand through his hair, messing it up even further.

“The best,” Sirius replies immediately. “Like your flying.”

“Better than my flying!” James proclaims. His hand reaches out to hover near the wall of the cave. It never quite touches, but it gets close. Only Sirius can feel the texture of that stone, can indulge in this uninhibited calm.

“No one can take them away, you know?” James asks, suddenly unsure, but it just makes Sirius smile.

“I do,” he answers. 

“I’m really glad for that,” James tells him, finally letting his hand fall back to his side. He sighs softly. “I’ve got to put my broom back, now.”

“That’s okay,” Sirius tells him, taking a moment to inhale the air of free, untamed nature. He closes his eyes, breathing deeply. “It’s all okay now.”

When he opens his eyes again, the cave is empty.

***

It’s a while longer before he shows up. Sirius knows he will, just as surely as he knows the dappled light around him will never fade. Nothing will fade for him, ever again.

When he does come, he’s timid, uncertain. He pauses at the entrance, not sure whether to cross it or not. He looks behind him, considers turning back. But he can’t do it. He must face this.

“I’ve missed you,” Sirius greets him, nothing in the words except the raw truth. Even in life, Sirius missed Regulus so much.

“I’m sorry,” his brother tells him. Regulus hangs his head, too ashamed to look Sirius in the eye.

“We have nothing to be sorry for anymore,” Sirius assures him. “This isn’t a place of sorrow.”

Regulus nods, but doesn’t raise his head.

“Look at me?” Sirius requests, and it takes a moment, but finally his brother’s gaze meets his own. There is so much hurt in those eyes, so many aches and wounds. But one day, his brother will float. Sirius knows this.

“I know you loved me. You must know I loved you. And the rest of it…” Sirius gestures with a hand, as if brushing crumbs into the wind. “It doesn’t matter.” He smiles softly, encouragingly. “You’re my brother. That’s enough.”

A tear traces its way down Regulus’ cheek, like a drop of the salty sea claiming its place on his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“Why are you sorry?” Sirius asks patiently, his tone soft and curious.

“Because you…died,” Regulus whispers the last word. For a split second, the dapples of light darken and the birdsong dims.

And then, an instant later, all is back in full bloom, vivid and tranquil.

“Yes,” Sirius agrees, without hesitation or regret. “Yes.”

And then he smiles widely, beaming brighter than any supernova, his mind overflowing with the memories of passing years like cars of a train blurring by.

“But I lived.”

***

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

- Excerpt from “Death Shall Have No Dominion” by Dylan Thomas