Chapter Text
The Potter family curse was a long-standing secret, one spoken of only in whispers, passed down through generations. It was never acknowledged openly, but everyone in the family knew it was there, lurking, waiting for the next victim. It wasn’t something that could be fought or ignored—it was part of them, like an ancient inheritance that would inevitably claim one of their own.
The curse was tied to love.
The first person to fall in love, truly and completely, would unknowingly begin the descent into madness. The affliction didn’t strike all at once. It started slowly, with small, seemingly harmless episodes. A sudden shift in mood, a vague sense of paranoia, disjointed thoughts, and intense emotions that couldn’t be controlled. The person would start to question their reality—hearing voices, seeing things that weren’t there—until the madness overtook them. The illness would twist their mind, draining the life from them slowly, until their mind and soul were unrecognizable.
And when love came, the curse was always certain.
James had heard the stories since he was a child. His family rarely spoke about it directly, but it was always there in the back of his mind. He had grown up knowing the fate of his ancestors: men and women who had fallen in love, only to be consumed by the curse. They would lose themselves bit by bit, and in the end, they would die not physically, but mentally. It was the kind of death that left them a shell of who they had once been.
His mother, Euphemia Potter, had died from it.
No one ever said it outright, but James had always known. He had seen it in his mother’s eyes before she passed—how she would slip into moments of confusion, how she would forget things, even forget people she had loved. She had fought it for years, but the curse had taken hold of her mind after she’d fallen in love with his father, Fleamont Potter. It was only after James had left for Hogwarts that the episodes began in earnest—episodes of panic, delusions, and bursts of uncontrollable emotion.
His mother had fought bravely, doing everything she could to hide it, but as the years went on, she lost that battle. By the time James was seventeen, Euphemia was barely recognizable as the woman he had known. The illness had taken everything from her—her sharp mind, her kind heart—and in the end, it claimed her completely. She died not from sickness, but from the unraveling of her sanity.
James had never been able to shake the image of her in those final days—her eyes vacant, lost in a fog of her own mind, unable to reach out to him, or even remember him. He had often wondered if he, too, would fall victim to the same curse. And it had always been in the back of his mind, especially when he found himself falling for Regulus Black.
It was happening now.
James had felt it the moment he fell in love with Regulus. The emotions were too intense, too consuming, and despite all the joy Regulus brought him, there was a gnawing feeling that the curse was stirring in the shadows, watching, waiting. The first sign had been a subtle thing—an overwhelming wave of confusion that hit him in the middle of a conversation, followed by bursts of irrational fear and anxiety. He had tried to shake it off, convinced it was just stress or lack of sleep. But as days passed, the episodes came more frequently. His emotions swung wildly, from intense highs to deep lows, and he would sometimes hear things that no one else could. He would see Regulus's face distorted in his mind, his voice warped into accusations he couldn’t place. The worst part was the clarity that followed—those brief moments where he remembered who he was and what was real—but it was never enough to hold onto.
James knew. It was happening to him just as it had to his mother. The curse had come for him, and this time, there was no escaping it.
His thoughts spiraled into panic the more he tried to suppress them. The feeling of losing control became unbearable. He would wake up in the middle of the night, heart racing, drenched in sweat, certain that the curse had already taken root in his mind. He felt the sickness crawling under his skin, each passing day making him more certain that he was losing his grip on reality. The hallucinations had started too—whispers in the dark, shadows in the corners of his vision, and the constant pressure to keep it all hidden from everyone around him.
He couldn’t tell Regulus, couldn’t tell anyone. He had seen what had happened to his mother. He knew the inevitable outcome. And if Regulus knew, he would leave him—just like everyone else did.
The Potter family curse had never been so personal until now. James could feel it in his bones—the slow, relentless unraveling of his mind. He had inherited it, just as his mother had before him. And in the depths of his terror, he couldn’t help but wonder: would Regulus be the one to witness it? Would he be the one to see James become someone else, someone unrecognizable?
Every time James closed his eyes, he saw his mother’s face. He saw her slipping away, bit by bit, until there was nothing left of the woman she had once been. He saw her madness reflected in his own mind—felt it building, growing, and it terrified him.
Love, for the Potters, had always come with a price. And for James, that price was now more than he could bear.