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Partway into dinner, Lily cleared her throat and set down her chopsticks purposefully. Next to her, James immediately sat straighter in his chair, though he kept eating.
Regulus glanced up from blowing on his next bite of noodles to watch both of them across the table.
“Regulus,” Lily began with an uncharacteristic nervousness, “We-- I-- well, the both of us, so ‘we’, wanted to ask you something.”
She paused long enough that Regulus went ahead and slurped up the noodles while waiting for her to get on with it.
“We want to have a child. A baby.”
Mouth full, Regulus raised his eyebrows. He chewed, swallowed. Finally, about when the awkward pause was making James grimace, he said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Lily asked somewhat incredulously.
Regulus shrugged. “I don’t see how that process involves me at all. Also, that wasn’t a question.” He picked out and ate a few pieces of vegetable before gathering up another chunk of noodles to cool in the air.
“The, ah, conception wouldn’t involve you, no,” Lily agreed with a faint blush. “But we were hoping you would be the third parent, if that was something you wanted?”
This time, Regulus was grateful for the large quantity of noodles in his mouth, because it gave him a moment to think. He hadn’t really considered wanting children before.
Regulus had always expected to have children, in a sort of inevitable way. He was the last heir of House Black still in the family. Narcissa and Bellatrix had married out to secure political alliances and with Andromeda and then Sirius being struck from the family tree, the duty fell on him to continue the family line and perpetuate their name and magic. It was not something he’d ever thought of with pleasure, because to do so he’d be expected to marry an upstanding, pureblood witch who shared his parents’ political values or at least could fake it when necessary. This was something Regulus still expected to happen, actually, even though he had been dating James and living with him and Lily for a couple of years. He didn’t expect his parents to die before they ensured their lineage was secure. His father’s health was failing rapidly, but this would likely only push his mother to get on with arranging a marriage.
Still, the thought of raising children - if it was with someone he loved and with people he knew would genuinely care for them as more than magical vessels - wasn’t a bad one. He might even come to enjoy it, and to love them if they were anything like James.
He said as much after he swallowed, though only the last bit. The Gryffindors wouldn’t take the idea of Regulus inevitably leaving them for a loveless marriage well.
They both smiled at him. James reached over to take his free hand across the table.
“How soon were you thinking?” Regulus asked Lily. He locked eyes with James and found he couldn’t let them go.
“Not immediately,” Lily said. “In the next couple of years, though. I want to be at a more stable position in the Ministry first, which should hopefully be soon.”
Regulus hummed an agreement, though he wasn’t looking at her. James’ eyes were full of sincerity and a familiar softness that made Regulus melt a little more the longer he looked into them. He felt a longing stir alongside the familiar warmth in his chest. This was the only person he would’ve wanted to marry.
Regulus’ eyes widened. Oh. That was important, actually.
He set down his chopsticks and slipped his hand out of James’ to dig around inside his bag - sitting beside him; he’d only just got home before dinner - until he found his diary with its marked up dates. He flipped forward a few months, making some quick calculations and trying to remember his mother’s grousing about the hassle of wedding planning from Narcissa’s when he was younger.
“Definitely couldn’t be earlier than May, though June would be better,” he muttered. “Late June or July for the best attendance with summer break. Also the weather.” He huffed a curse. He couldn’t stand dealing with seers to begin with and they were always so touchy about weather predictions, too. Couldn’t be helped, though. What if he asked that one from Belgium, what was her name . . .
“Reg?” James’ voice dragged him back to the dinner he’d abandoned. Lily had resumed eating and was watching him curiously from behind the curl of steam coming off her soup. “What are you mumbling about?”
“Your wedding,” Regulus said matter-of-factly. “Which should be as soon as possible, if you don’t want the entire Sacred 28 gossiping about your child being illegitimate their entire lives.”
Lily’s spoon clattered back into her bowl. She hissed at the splash and dug out her wand to clean her shirt before it could stain.
“We aren’t going to get married.” James’ cheeks were flushed.
“Really?” Regulus asked in genuine surprise. “You’re the most romantic person I know. I didn’t expect you to have commitment issues.”
“I don’t,” James said fiercely. He held Regulus’ gaze. “I decided back when we started dating that I wanted to be with you both for the rest of my life--” he turned to look at Lily beside him “--or as long as you’ll have me.” He leaned back in his chair so he could flick his gaze from one to the other without moving his head. He continued earnestly, “But that’s exactly why I don’t want to get married. Magical Britain doesn’t allow multi person marriages and it wouldn’t be right to only marry one of you. I don’t want either of you to feel second best or ever doubt that I love you because of it.”
“It wouldn’t be an issue if you two got married, because I’m suggesting it.”
This was not necessarily true, but Regulus was still too shocked to figure out how he actually felt about it. He had never expected to marry James, whether he and Lily jumped the broom or not. This was definitely not the right time to say so, though.
“I think James makes an excellent point,” Lily put in. “And even if he did marry one of us, it should be you, since he and I will have an actual child tying us together.”
Regulus was quickly losing control of this conversation, though he wasn’t sure he’d had it to begin with. Why was he having to talk these two into getting married when it was something they all wanted anyway? He switched tacks.
“That wouldn’t make sense. He and I are both the last heirs of our Houses, so neither of us can marry out. And as much as I love James--” Regulus managed to not stumble over the word, though he was still unused to declaring it so casually “--I won’t give up my connection to my family magic for him. James’ child needs to be an heir to the Potter line, if it’s to continue, and it’s ridiculous for him not to marry you only to formally adopt them magically later.”
“I’m not concerned about ‘continuing my line’ at all,” James insisted with exasperation. “You know my family doesn’t follow with the pureblood ethos anyway, so it doesn’t matter. My only concern is our happiness.”
“I know you don’t care about pureblood elitism,” Regulus retorted. “That’s not what I meant. It would be a shame to lose one of the few remaining strong family magics in Britain - most of which are pureblood - especially to something as ridiculous as this.”
James frowned, but didn’t argue.
“And what about the Black family magic?” Lily asked with a sharp glint in her eye. “How do you intend to continue your line? Somehow I don’t think your parents would be willing to accept an adopted heir.”
She said it like she knew exactly what Regulus expected to happen. This was definitely not a discussion Regulus was ready to have right now. He couldn’t handle navigating a genuine argument about his future - and the inevitable misery for James that would come out of it - on top of what was turning out to be the most ridiculous squabble he’d been involved in since he still lived in the Slytherin dungeons. Which was a feat in and of itself, because throwing a couple of hundred snippy, ambitious pureblood children together made for some spectacularly petty arguments.
“I’ll figure something out,” Regulus said harshly. “It won’t be an issue for a few more years at least.”
Lily did not look convinced and now James was watching him with concern. Great.
James’ brow furrowed suddenly and he opened his mouth. Regulus’ heart dropped down to hell. He’d really been hoping to stave off this little realization about the realities of heirship James and Sirius had both escaped as long as he could.
Luckily, Lily spoke before James had the chance to voice any suspicions. “Obviously, you and I should be the ones to get married,” she said.
Maybe not so lucky after all.
Regulus’ and James’ heads both whipped towards her, but it took Regulus a long moment to actually process her words. James was gaping like a fish.
“What the hell, Evans?” Regulus hissed. “Of the three people at this table, you and I are the only ones who don’t want a marital relationship. Or at least I don’t. I was always under the impression you felt the same.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “I have no interest in sullying your virtue, Regulus.” That was rich, in more ways than one. What had happened to the woman who blushed when she said the word ‘conceive’ even though they were both well aware of what the other got up to with James behind closed doors? “It would solve all of our problems, though.”
“How so?” asked James, apparently recovered from his shock and sounding far too accepting of the idea.
Lily held up a hand and counted off her fingers as she listed out her points. “To begin with, there wouldn’t be the issue of Regulus or I becoming jealous of the other’s marriage, since it would only be a legality between us anyway. Regulus wouldn’t have to worry about his parents arranging a marriage for him anymore. Better yet, there’d be Black heir by law and magic, indisputably, even if the child wasn’t related to him at all. I’m sure it’s happened before. And finally, any future children James and I have could be adopted into the Potter magic, or split between the two houses depending on how many we end up having.”
Regulus was impressed despite himself. He hadn’t realized Lily was so aware of the intricacies of pureblood family politics. However, she was forgetting the most important thing. “There’s no way my parents would agree to let me marry a muggleborn witch. I’m pretty sure they’d prefer I marry a Weasley, and one of my great-aunts was blasted from the tree for that. I’d be disowned in an instant.”
“I don’t think you would, actually,” Lily said thoughtfully. “They can’t afford to lose their last remaining heir. If they didn’t accept your marriage to me, they’d have to do something much more drastic, like admit that Ted Tonks wasn’t so terrible after all and reinherit Andromeda. Or redo Bellatrix’ marriage so that her husband married into the Black line instead. Either way, there would be a lot of publicity and scandal over the whole thing. It’d be much easier to quietly accept and do everything in their power to hide the identity of your wife, which is what we’d want anyway, so.”
“My mother doesn’t do easy,” Regulus said dryly. “You underestimate her willingness to hunt down some long-lost cousin from the wrong side of the pond, or sheets, and name them heir instead of either of her disappointing sons.”
“If she’s willing to do that, then why would an adopted heir be so out of the question?” Lily asked with an eye roll. “And really, I never saw the point in calling children of purebloods and muggleborns ‘halfbloods’ anyway. They have two magical parents. If the ancient purebloods are so concerned about their lines dying out, shouldn’t they be desperate to marry in muggleborns - spontaneous new sources of magic that we are - and strengthen their lines?”
“If muggleborns are actually new sources of magic, yes,” Regulus agreed. “But the prevailing fear is that muggleborns are actually descendants of squibs who married muggles and that would increase the chance of squib children overall. Although I think that’s a bit ridiculous, considering that magic would’ve come back to the line strong enough to produce a magical child despite the distance to any family magic. ‘Halfblood’ is a wishy-washy term to begin with.”
Regulus risked a glance at James and found him watching them both with eyes like the particulars of blood-magic theory were one of the most attractive things he’d ever heard. Regulus was secretly convinced that James could be persuaded to fall for anyone more intelligent than he, and thus his purely platonic relationships with the other Marauders were not a point in their favor.
“So,” Lily said in a smug sort of voice that got Regulus’ attention immediately. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Regulus reluctantly realized that by agreeing a child of James and Lily shouldn’t necessarily be classified as a halfblood, he’d also admitted that they could make an acceptable heir for a pureblood dynasty and not just one such as the Potters or Weasleys who didn’t care about the blood status of those inheriting their magic. “Want to give it a shot?”
“May I remind you that unlike my idiot brother, I don’t actually want to be disowned?”
“I think Lily’s right and it could work,” James informed him.
“You just don’t want to consider the alternative,” Regulus replied irritably. “You also don’t seem to care that you will technically be cuckolding me for the rest of our lives.”
“Well, I’d be cuckolding Lily, too,” said James, because he could be shameless like that.
“That is not the correct term,” retorted Regulus, because he actually knew the definitions of the words he used.
Lily snorted. “Alright, let’s get another opinion, then. We can fire-call Sirius and ask him.”
“Sirius will say whatever results in the most mayhem and rebellion within the family,” Regulus said derisively.
“Andromeda, then.” Lily shrugged. She moved to stand up from the table.
“Can we finish dinner first?” James asked plaintively.
“You’re the ones who ambushed me with this baby business in the middle of it,” Regulus pointed out. He didn’t move to follow Lily, though, and instead picked up his spoon. It had been a long day and he would quite like to finish eating before hashing out the specifics of blood politics. He grimaced at the thoroughly lukewarm broth. “And made such a big deal out of it that the food’s gone cold.”
“Very well,” Lily sighed. She extracted her wand from its sleeve and cast warming charms on all the remaining food at the table. “Feast away. But afterwards, we’re calling your cousin. Don’t think I’m letting this go.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Regulus muttered. He took another sip of the much-improved soup. “Not without an imperio anyway.”
James choked and went into a hacking fit, turning away from the table as he did so.
“You may certainly try,” Lily said serenely. “But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Regulus narrowed his eyes at her. “And how would you have built up an immunity to the Imperius curse without parents to test it on you, I wonder?”
James, who had finally recovered enough to breathe, choked again on his calming sip of water.
Lily smiled enigmatically.
“Someday--” James said hoarsely, pointing to Regulus “--I am going to learn all of the horrible things your parents have done to you.” He switched his finger over to Lily. “And someday I will stop underestimating you.” He let his hand drop. “You’re both scary.” James notably did not appear to be concerned by this in the least.
“Maybe not with the childhood trauma, but I do hope I never stop surprising you entirely,” Regulus admitted. The words themselves were not terribly romantic, but the sentiment behind them was.
“It’s quite gratifying,” Lily agreed.
James shook his head at them both with a fond smile. “Constant bewilderment is a small price to pay for being loved so well,” he said with his heart in his voice. “I hope our kid will agree.”
Lily laughed. “If they’re anything like you, it won’t be a problem.”