Chapter Text
Unexpected things happen in life all the time, right?
James Fleamont Potter can definitely attest to that. After spending years married to his wonderful wife, Lily Evans-Potter, their seemingly devoted relationship capsized when Lily had met her current girlfriend, and realized that she was a lesbian. She believed it would be better to stay close friends with James instead of in a romantic relationship and this ended up well for them, but of course, it still put a strain on his heart letting a woman go after loving her romantically for so long.
Lily was lovely, and so was their relationship, but it seems like there was never really a spark. It had begun because James liked the chase in high school, but the thrill was over as soon as the chase was.
That’s what led him to accept the divorce easily, they still kept in touch and he invited her and her girlfriend over sometimes, but it was clear they’ve always been better like this even if they didn’t know it was an option.
Initially, James had no clue what to do with himself. He lost his wife, his friends are all married and he has no one to be around, but he doesn’t want to be stuck in his own head constantly.
His friends had suggested many things—picking up an instrument, learning a sport, volunteering at local places, journaling, yoga—everything in the books and he had no interest in any of it.
That’s when one of his friends recommended he take a trip to another country.
At first, James wasn’t sure. He didn’t know anyone outside of his hometown, and he wasn’t very great at other languages, which is a big factor in most European countries. He suffered this inner turmoil for weeks before he realized he wasn’t getting any better while sitting in his room and staring at his ceiling unproductively.
That’s what brought him to Paris, France.
He knows it’s a tourist city, and he can tell who’s an American from a mile away, but it’s definitely a positive change of scenery and it’s almost a relief that he’s unable to run into anybody that he knows. Here, there’s no expectations set for him.
The first few days in Paris were awkward at best.
James had fumbled through grocery store aisles, squinting at labels and trying to decipher what exactly he was buying. He missed the familiarity of home, but there was also something oddly comforting about being a stranger in a place where no one expected him to smile if he didn’t feel like it—it seemed like Parisians were allergic to smiling anyway.
He wandered a lot. With a tattered guidebook stuffed in his coat pocket and a pocket dictionary doing most of the work, James found himself strolling along the Seine, watching boats drift lazily past, or standing silently inside Notre-Dame, the hush of the cathedral wrapping around him like a heavy, sacred blanket. It wasn’t quite healing—but it was something.
On his fourth evening, he ducked into a small café on the Left Bank, mostly because it had started to rain and his jacket had zero respect for weather forecasts. The place was dim and warm, the kind of cozy that made you forget time existed. A chalkboard menu hung above the bar, the handwriting so ornate it looked like calligraphy, and music he didn’t recognize played softly from a corner speaker.
He ordered a drink with a name that he could barely pronounce in a comprehensible manner and sat at a corner table, drumming his fingers against the wood, letting the background noise settle into a faint buzzing while he looked out of the window.
Though he hadn’t paid much attention to his surroundings before, he notices a newspaper on one of the tables closest to him and decides to pick it up himself and attempt to read it since nobody else is.
After a lot of struggling and mispronunciation that occurred in his head, he can make out the words just barely. It’s an article about a cemetery near him, only around twenty minutes away, and there’s a ticket to get a free tour.
He’s aware that some very famous people are buried there—Wilde, Piaf, Chopin, and many more—so who is he to turn down the offer he just stumbled upon? Only an idiot would do that.
He tears the ticket out of the newspaper and pockets it before finishing his now lukewarm drink and heading back to where he’s been staying.
—
The next morning, Paris greeted James with a sliver of sunlight—barely any but still enough to shake the cold from his bones. He dressed warmer this time, jacket zipped high, scarf looped tight, and the torn ticket tucked safely into his pocket like a secret invitation.
The cemetery—Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, as the guidebook called it—was tucked into the 20th arrondissement like a forgotten relic, vast and quiet in the way only cemeteries can be. The iron gates loomed above him, streaked with age and vine, and as he stepped through, it felt like he’d crossed into another world. One untouched by the bustle of cafes and metro cars and people who didn’t look twice.
Despite the fact that there were famous people buried in the cemetery, the side that James entered on was so quiet and serene with nobody in sight. Tourists most likely aren’t even awake yet. It definitely wasn’t the normal entrance so maybe he didn’t even need a ticket for a tour guide in the first place.
He had expected something grim. Somber. But there was a strange kind of beauty to the place. The mausoleums were like miniature palaces, ivy-draped and cracked with time, and angels wept silently atop mossy headstones. The air smelled like rain-drenched stone and flowers left too long in the cold.
Each step took him deeper into the cemetery’s labyrinth, down winding paths where the names on the stones had faded into a script only the dead could read. The stillness was comforting, in an eerie sort of way, like the city had finally stopped talking long enough for him to catch his breath.
That’s when it happened.
He turned a corner, following a path shaded by towering trees, and found himself at a quiet dead-end. There, half-hidden behind a weathered marble angel, was a grave with a lit lantern next to it and a design he didn’t recognize. Usually people chose angels, or something to symbolize the life that person had lived. This grave had a statue, yes, but it looked like an actual boy.
It wasn’t just the headstone that had caught his attention, though it was beautiful in a strange, old-fashioned sort of way. The name underneath it etched into black marble was intriguing aswell.
Regulus Arcturus Black
1956 – 1979
“Morior invictus”
James blinked. The name sparked something in him, but he couldn’t place it. A flicker of familiarity, like a word on the tip of his tongue. He recognizes the name from his own constellation in astronomy.
He stepped closer, fingers brushing the cold and polished stone. “Regulus,” he murmured aloud. “That’s a hell of a name.”
“You’re not the first to say that.”
James froze.
It wasn’t the wind. It wasn’t his imagination. He turned, heart thudding in his chest, and there—leaning casually against the tree beside the grave—was a man. Not just any man, one that looks exactly the same as the statue.
Young, maybe early twenties, with dark hair falling in elegant waves, sharp cheekbones, and eyes like polished glass. He was dressed like he belonged in a different time with a well-fitted black coat, high-collared shirt, silver pin gleaming faintly at his throat, and beautiful silver rings adorning his fingers. He looked solid, real, human.
But James knew better. No one just appeared like that, especially not in the middle of a cemetery right next to a statue that they share a physical appearance with.
The man raised an eyebrow. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
James opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I think I have?” James responds, but he doesn’t panic. What does one do in a situation like this? Run off screaming and have people think you’re insane? Question your sanity?
The stranger’s lips curved slowly. “Technically, yes. But don’t worry. I’m very polite.”
James blinked at him, soaked in a long silence before finally managing: “Regulus?”
The ghost gave a slight bow, all mock-aristocratic elegance. “In the flesh.” He looks up and tilts his head slightly, “Well. Formerly.”
James swallowed, still trying to catch up with reality (or what felt like a departure from it).
"You're real?" he asked, immediately feeling stupid. Of course he wasn't real . And yet, there he was.
Regulus gave a dry smile. "Real enough to hold a conversation. Which is more than I can say for most people who stop by."
James looked back at the gravestone, then at the ghost, then rubbed a hand over his face. "Okay. This is happening. I'm talking to a ghost."
"You're handling it better than most," Regulus said mildly. "No screaming. No running. That's moderately promising."
"Give it a minute," James muttered.
Regulus laughed. It was quiet, but genuine, like the soft flicker of a candle in the dark. "You asked about my name. Would you like the rest of the story that goes with it?"
James glanced around. The air was still, the path empty. "Sure. I’ve got time."
"Good." Regulus stepped off from the tree and gestured down a nearby path. "Walk with me. It’s been ages since I had company worth speaking to."
They walked in silence for a moment, the gravel crunching faintly beneath James’s shoes. Regulus made no sound at all.
"You were French?" James finally said. "I mean, you have an accent and are quite literally buried in Paris."
"Very astute," Regulus said dryly. "Yes. Born and raised. Though you could say my life was tragically short and very complicated."
James looked over at him curiously, it’s not every day that one gets to question or speak to a ghost. "What happened?"
Regulus didn’t answer right away. His expression turned inward, distant. "I made a choice. A brave one, if you believe my brother. A stupid one, if you believe my mother."
"And you?"
Regulus looked at him. "I think it was necessary."
They reached a bench nestled between two crumbling statues. Regulus sat—floated might have been more accurate—and James, not knowing what else to do, sat beside him.
"You came here for a reason, too," Regulus said, glancing sideways at him. "Not just to read names off tombstones."
James hesitated. "Divorce. A fresh start, I guess. Trying to figure out who I am now."
Regulus nodded slowly. "There’s something about the dead that makes the living confess things, isn’t there?"
James gave a half-smile. "Maybe it’s because you can’t tell anyone."
"Or maybe," Regulus said, his gaze softening just a little, "it’s because you know we’ll actually listen."
And for the first time in what felt like months, James believed that something he’s doing may be worth his time.
—
James wasn’t sure how long they sat there. Minutes, maybe more. Time seemed to fold in on itself around Regulus, like his presence warped the edges of reality, thinning the veil between life and death all while coaxing James into joining him.
But it didn’t feel threatening—if anything, it was peaceful. Calming, in a way James hadn’t felt since he would lounge under willow trees in the sunlight as a teenager.
Regulus didn’t press for more details. He didn’t ask about Lily, the divorce, or the ache that remains after being left behind in your own life. He just sat beside James like a quiet, knowing thing. The kind of presence that didn’t demand, only offered.
Eventually, James broke the silence. “So what keeps you here? Why stay?”
Regulus glanced upward at the slanting sky. A few crows circled overhead, their cries sharp against the morning quiet. “Tethering,” he said simply. “Some ghosts are bound to pain. To regret. Some don’t even realize they’ve died. But me? I chose this.”
James blinked. “You chose to stay a ghost?”
A nod. “I couldn’t leave. Not yet. There were too many things I didn’t get to do. Too many truths I never got to speak aloud. So I asked—begged, really—for one more chance to linger. Just long enough to be remembered properly. Not as the boy who disappeared, but as someone who mattered. I still haven’t gotten that.”
They sat in silence again for a few moments.
“You did matter,” James said finally. “You still do.”
A ghost of a smile curled Regulus’s lips. “Thank you,” he said, and James could tell it was the kind of thank you that reached deeper than words usually did.
A breeze moved through the cemetery then, stirring leaves and lifting the edges of Regulus’s coat. The ghost didn’t shiver, most likely because he’s unable to feel cold, but James did, pulling his scarf tighter.
“Will I see you again?” James asked, and instantly felt ridiculous for asking.
But Regulus only looked amused. “That depends,” he said, rising slowly to his feet. “Are you planning on making this a habit? Visiting a dead boy in a famous cemetery?”
James considered. “Maybe. You’re the most interesting conversation I’ve had in months.”
Regulus nodded curtly. “Then yes. I think I’d like that.”
He turned to go, fading step by step into the soft light filtering through the trees, but paused before he disappeared completely.
“Wait.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s more waiting for you than you think. Just remember you don't have to spend your life being buried in someone else’s fate. Choose your own.”
And then he was gone. Just like that.
James sat there, blinking at the empty bench beside him, heart hammering in the strange silence that followed. He didn’t know what any of this meant. But something inside him had shifted both subtly and gently.
Maybe this trip wasn't about getting lost after all. Maybe it was about finding something—or someone—unexpected.
He stood up slowly, brushing off his coat. The path before him looked the same, but felt entirely different.
James Fleamont Potter walked out of the cemetery with the torn ticket still in his pocket and a ghost’s voice echoing softly in his head.
—
The next few days passed in a sort of quiet haze.
James tried to go back to doing normal tourist things—wandering through Montmartre, getting hopelessly lost near the Latin Quarter, buying overpriced postcards he never sent. But his thoughts always circled back to the cemetery. To Regulus.
He hadn’t told anyone. Not even his friends when they spoke briefly over the phone.
James didn’t return to Père-Lachaise immediately. Part of him was scared that it had all been in his head, that if he went back, Regulus would be gone—just another cracked name on a beautiful stone.
But on the seventh day, just as the grey clouds broke open with a hint of pale gold, he found himself standing before the gates again.
This time, he didn’t wander. He walked the same twisting path, heart thudding with each step, past crooked angels and weather-worn urns, until the familiar corner came into view.
Regulus was already there.
Perched atop his own grave like it was the most natural thing in the world, legs swinging lazily, one hand pressed to the cool marble as if anchoring himself. He looked up as James approached, expression unreadable.
“You came back,” he said.
James shrugged, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets. “I owed you a conversation.”
Regulus tilted his head. “Do you always visit cemeteries to keep your promises?”
“Only when the person I’m talking to is dead,” James said dryly.
Regulus smiled, just barely. “Fair.”
They stood in a companionable silence for a while, the only sound the wind moving through the cypress trees and the distant hush of the city. Here, the noise of Paris never quite reached.
“You said you wanted to be remembered properly,” James said eventually. “What did people forget?”
Regulus glanced sideways at him. “Everything,” he said simply. “They remembered the way I looked. How quiet I was. My family name. But not me . Not what I wanted. Not the things I was afraid of. Or the people I loved.”
James sat down on the grass, letting the chill soak into his bones. “Tell me.”
Regulus blinked in a puzzled manner. “What?”
James looked up at him. “Tell me what you want someone to remember.”
For a long moment, Regulus said nothing. Then he sat cross-legged beside James, his presence colder than the earth but somehow grounding.
“I loved astronomy,” he said, voice soft. “Not just the stars—the mythology. The idea that someone looked up at the sky and gave every bright thing a name so they wouldn’t feel alone. There’s a quote that reminds me of that, how mythology came to be. ‘If you leave God alone, he’ll create man. If you leave man alone, he’ll create God.’ It reminds me that everything is only what we make it.”
James nodded while listening with intent.
“I hated tea,” Regulus added. “Everyone in my family drank it constantly thinking it made them more sophisticated or something. I used to sneak coffee into the house like it was contraband.”
That made James laugh. “Scandalous.”
Regulus smiled faintly. “I was good at piano. Never told anyone. Played when the house was empty, or at night. I liked Chopin.”
James swallowed. “He’s here too. Buried a few rows over.”
“I know,” Regulus said. “I visit sometimes.”
He was quiet for a moment, brushing phantom fingers across the head of a flower that had bent in the wind.
“I had a crush once,” he said. “He didn’t know.”
James looked at him carefully, but didn’t ask who. The way Regulus’s voice softened, the way he guarded that part of the story—James knew it wasn’t something to pry into. Not yet.
“What happened?” he asked instead.
“I died,” Regulus said, like it was the punchline of a joke. “And he didn’t come to the funeral. Probably never knew I was here.”
James’s chest ached. “I’m sorry.”
Regulus shook his head. “It’s not your fault. None of this is. That’s the thing about ghosts—we carry everything we never got to say. And hope, foolishly, that someone comes along who wants to listen.”
James didn’t know what possessed him to reach out—but he did. His hand hovered near Regulus’s, just close enough to feel the chill.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Regulus looked at him—really looked at him—for a long time. There was something like relief in his expression, some easing of a century-old tension.
“You shouldn’t be able to see me,” he said suddenly. “Not really.”
James blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Most people can’t. Not unless they’re…” Regulus trailed off, brows furrowing. “Not unless they’re fractured. Broken open by something. It doesn’t exactly have to be something devastating or traumatic, but just something that allows their point of view to be expanded. Reality knows what you can handle better than you do, that’s why weird things happen sometimes.”
James felt the words like a pulse in his ribs. “Maybe I am a bit fractured then.”
Regulus studied him, then nodded slowly. “That makes two of us.”
A sudden breeze whipped past them, scattering petals from a nearby grave. Regulus stood, the motion fluid and impossibly silent. He looked down at James, his voice low.
“Do you want to see something?”
James raised a brow. “Is this the part where you lure me into a haunted crypt?”
Regulus gave him a small look, as if debating it, before speaking once again. “Tempting. But no.”
He extended a hand, pale and shimmering like moonlight through glass. James hesitated only a moment before standing, the tips of his fingers brushing against Regulus’s.
It wasn’t solid—but it wasn’t nothing. It felt like static, a tingling feeling that spread from his fingertips to his wrist and all around his arm.
“Come on,” Regulus said, already turning down a path James hadn’t noticed before. “Paris has more ghosts than you think.”
James followed without hesitation as Regulus weaved through the graves with no issue, it’s only realistic to assume that he knows the cemetery like the back of his hand, there’s not much else to do there than wander.
They stop at a few graves, the more impressionable ones, not just determined by fame, but by the beauty of the stone, the life of the person, the ages.
Regulus stopped him at one that was seemingly normal, just a small little angel carved into a granite headstone.
“This is my bestfriend’s stone, her name’s Pandora. We knew eachother when we were alive, she had gotten into an accident when her daughter, Luna, was only nine. We talk whenever she comes around, it might be horrible to say because the living mourned her loss, but it was a relief for me to finally have someone I know here.” Regulus explains, and James doesn’t interrupt or ask questions. “Her and Luna used to stop by and sit at my grave. To Luna, I’m Uncle Reg. It was sweet.”
They wander a bit longer, Regulus shows him to the famous graves, but they stay at Oscar Wilde’s for a good moment because Regulus found out that James had never read an Oscar Wilde book.
“This is blasphemous.” Regulus had muttered, “Promise me that the second you step out of those gates, you’re going to head to a bookstore and read his books.”
And James in fact kept that promise.
—
The bookstore was quiet in the way only old ones are—hushed by time and dust, not silence. James stood in the cramped aisle, fingers grazing worn spines until he found the one Regulus had insisted on. The Picture of Dorian Gray. The cover was weathered, almost regal in its tattered black binding.
He bought it without reading the back, he trusts Regulus’s taste.
That night, he read for hours. Not because he felt obligated, but because something in Wilde's words echoed the voice of the ghost who'd demanded he understand them. It felt strangely like a conversation. Like Regulus was somewhere nearby, watching him read with a smug little smile.
It became a ritual after that.
James would wake before the sun, wander the city, buy cheap coffee, then find himself drifting—always—back to the cemetery by dawn. Regulus was always waiting. Sometimes perched on his own grave like a gargoyle with impeccable taste. Sometimes walking among the stones and memorizing names and stories.
They talked about absolutely everything.
Life. Death. Why Parisians refused to smile at strangers. How Regulus thought fashion had peaked in 1967. How James wasn’t sure what his life was supposed to be now that everything he’d planned for had fallen apart.
Regulus never mocked his uncertainty. If anything, he seemed to understand it in a way no living person had.
“You know,” James said one day, sitting on the grass beside Regulus's grave, “this is the strangest friendship I’ve ever had.”
Regulus sat nearby, legs tucked beneath him, half-translucent in the late afternoon light. “That’s because it isn’t really a friendship.”
James turned his head. “No?”
Regulus hesitated. “It’s more like... two people who don’t quite belong in the world, finding a way to belong to each other.”
James stared at him, unsure how to respond. But he didn’t have to.
Because just then, Regulus reached out, fingertips ghosting over James’s shoulder. That same static-pulse of contact. Not warmth, exactly. But connection.
And James didn’t pull away.
He closed his eyes, letting the strange sensation settle over him like fog. He didn’t know where any of this was going. Or what it meant. But for the first time in a long time, he didn’t need all the answers.
All he needed was that spark of light in the dark.
And Regulus.
Always Regulus.
—
Some days later, James brought a camera.
“You know I won’t show up in those,” Regulus said, amused, as James fiddled with the old Polaroid.
“Doesn’t matter,” James replied. “It’s not about what shows up. It’s about remembering what doesn’t.”
Regulus didn’t have a witty response to go with that, if anything he felt slightly touched. He let James take photos even though he didn’t show up well in them, they were able to get a few in which Regulus’s shadow was slightly visible, or you could see the slight glinting of something unexplainable—they’re the only people in the world who know it’s actually Regulus’s rings.
James of course took photos of Regulus’s headstone, the statue that depicted Regulus in all his beautiful glory. Regulus sat back and watched.
A while later, James gets a call while they’re in the middle of talking. His friends want to know when he’s coming home. That’s something that James hasn’t considered—after all, he just met Regulus not long ago, and they still have so much potential. He can’t leave Regulus alone, can he? It’s already taken so long for him to find someone to talk to, it’s rare it would happen again.
The conversation continued, and yet James got more frustrated each moment before he finally said he doesn’t know, and that he’ll figure it out before hanging up.
Does James figure it out? No. Not in the slightest. If anything, his mind has been flooding with possibilities and alternate choices. He’s finally found someone to listen to him and give him time—even if it’s a dead boy that nobody else can see.
There’s something that feels different about Regulus, no matter how hard James tries to believe it’s just the whole being dead thing. James is likely never going to get the opportunity to meet anyone like Regulus ever again, but nobody can change that because James isn’t a citizen in France, and Regulus can’t leave that cemetery.
The next interactions that James and Regulus have are slightly charged, with unspoken words being louder than anything else. It seems like Regulus isn’t having fun anymore now that James has been asked to come home soon.
—
Regulus Arcturus Black has never been one to get attached to people, or even things. He grew up with the mindset that having no attachments was the safest idea because once you hand someone else the ability to hurt you, they always take the opportunity whether it’s intentional or not.
He thought that would have changed after death, but if anything, the feeling of being hurt only multiplied and brought a strong pang of shame into his thinking. If he didn’t speak to James in the first place, none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t be upset that James will eventually leave.
But also, if he didn’t speak to James then he wouldn’t have ever heard his voice, or the way that he breathlessly chuckles after running out of oxygen from laughing too hard. He never would have seen the way his eyes light up when they actually have something in common, especially because they were born in very different decades. He would’ve never gotten the opportunity to trace every curve and shadow of James’s face and add it to his memory in a box titled, ‘The sun and those adjacent.’
Regulus doesn’t know whether to be grateful or disdainful. It’s still not confirmed when James is returning to his home, but Regulus knows it’ll happen eventually and he can’t stop that thought from entering his head in the dead of night.
After dusk, he settles on top of the grass where he’s buried and he does nothing but ponder. There’s not exactly anything else that he can do.
He used to reminisce about his time alive quite frequently, but eventually it stopped mattering too much because everything that he used to have has already slipped through his fingers. Even if he could go back to his old life, there would be no sense of belonging for him anymore.
There’s something new that he’s been thinking about, but it brings just as much comfort as the thought of his dead loved ones and the fact that they never got to say goodbye to him. Most didn’t even know he died.
He can only think of one living person that he knows for sure will always remember him.
James Fleamont Potter.
—
The night crept in slowly, the way it always did in Paris. Blue deepening to indigo while the rest of the world goes quiet. Regulus lay still against the soft grass, the marble of his own grave cool against his arm, the stars beginning to blink through the light pollution overhead.
He didn’t need to sleep, of course. But he often stayed like this—motionless, contemplative. Listening to the world spin without him. Tonight, it was worse than usual. He kept hearing James’s voice echo through his mind like a song half-remembered. The warmth of it, the softness. The hint of loss he never quite managed to hide.
Regulus had felt loss before, but James wore it like a second skin.
It shouldn’t have mattered. Regulus had spent so many years alone—decades without a single soul who saw him, who heard him—and he’d survived. He’d learned how to exist in the cracks between the living. But now? Now, he had James . And James wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met, which made everything harder.
The next morning, James returned like he always did during the routine that they’ve created so comfortably—coffee in hand, book tucked under his arm, scarf just slightly crooked like he’d rushed out the door. Regulus was waiting at his usual perch, though he didn’t move to greet him like he normally would.
“Morning,” James said, slightly out of breath.
Regulus inclined his head. “Salut.”
James raised a brow at the shift in vocabulary. “Uh-oh. French. That’s never a good sign.”
Regulus said nothing at first, simply studied James with a gaze that made him feel far more exposed than anything else ever could.
“You didn’t come yesterday,” he said finally, and though his tone was something akin to light, the words fell heavy between them.
James shifted. “I almost did. I just—” He sighed. “Things are getting complicated. My friends want me back. And my landlord’s probably wondering if I’ve died in the bath or something.”
Regulus’s mouth twitched. “You could join me here. Eternity has better rent control.” And though it was said jokingly, Regulus found that he didn’t actually feel weird saying or suggesting it.
James chuckled, but it was thin around the edges. “Tempting.”
Silence stretched between them like fog. Regulus finally stood, moving with a grace that made the leaves barely stir. He walked a few steps, arms folded behind his back.
“I know you have to leave eventually,” he said, voice too even. “I know this—whatever this is—was never meant to last.”
James’s breath caught in his throat. “I don’t want to leave.” Is the first thing he says.
He doesn’t bother to deny that there’s something between them that can’t be explained, he doesn’t bother lying to Regulus and acting strong, he just makes the simple and truthful confession.
Regulus turned to him. “But you will, will you not?”
James hesitated. He didn’t have an answer, not one that didn’t sound like a lie or a desperate, childish wish.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” James said instead, which felt more like the truth. “Living or dead.”
Regulus gave him a long, unreadable look. “You shouldn’t have developed an interest in a dead person, James.”
“I didn’t say I have,” James replied, but the denial was too fast. Too sharp.
Regulus raised an eyebrow.
“I have not,” James added, softer this time.
But Regulus just smiled faintly, that same wistful curve of the lips that never quite reached his eyes. “You say that now.”
—
That night, James didn’t sleep. Not properly. He just stayed in bed staring at the ceiling, the copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray half-finished beside him. He kept imagining what it would be like to leave without saying goodbye. To walk away from Paris, from the cemetery, from Regulus, as if none of it had happened. As if the ghost hadn’t changed something in him that he wasn’t able to name.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from Lily.
Lils: “You’re worrying Remus. Come home soon, okay? Even Panda asked if you were alright.”
James stared at it. Then set the phone down without replying and soon drifted off to sleep. He never remembers his dreams when he wakes up, but he’ll never truly be rid of Regulus, especially at night when his subconscious can only conjure images of beautiful stormy eyes.
—
The next day, he brought flowers.
They were simple—white hyacinths and pale yellow tulips. Hope and sorrow and new beginnings, if the guidebook on flower meanings and floriography was to be believed.
Regulus stared at them for a long moment. “I’m allergic to tulips.” He says, instead of accepting them simply. Allergies don’t do anything to spirits, Regulus has told James this before, but it seems to not be relevant at the moment.
James blinked. “You’re a ghost.”
Regulus gave a very solemn nod. “Yes. And now I’m a ghost with a grudge.”
James snorted, placing the flowers carefully on the grave anyway. Regulus hasn’t received flowers since before Pandora died and joined him. “Fine. Next time I’ll bring lilies.”
Regulus grimaced. “Please don’t, I’d prefer your ex-wife to remain far from me, I’m sure she’s lovely though.”
They both laughed—really laughed—and for a second, the weight between them lifted, like a curtain drawn back to let the sun in. But then it settled again, quiet and unspoken.
James sat on the grass, knees tucked up to his chest, arms slung loosely around them. Regulus hovered nearby, eventually sinking to sit beside him, careful not to touch James and startle him randomly with the feeling of static.
“I keep thinking,” James said quietly, “that maybe I came here to fall apart. And instead, I’m…” He looked over at Regulus. “Rebuilding.”
Regulus looked away. “You shouldn’t need a dead man to do that.”
“But I do,” James said, and his voice was steady now. “I don’t care if it’s irrational or strange or sad. I don’t care that you can’t leave the cemetery or that I’m just a blip in your eternity. You’re the first person in a long time who saw me. Really saw me. And I don’t want to let that go just because the world thinks I should.”
Regulus didn’t answer. His fingers ghosted across the grass like a whisper as he listened to James speak.
“I’ll stay,” James said, so quietly it could’ve been the wind. “For a while longer.”
And for the first time, Regulus looked at him—not as a visitor. Not as a temporary comfort.
But as something real. Someone real.
And in the still hush of the cemetery, between the graves and the ivy and the ghosts that wandered unseen, something bloomed.
Not quite love.
But maybe something close.
—
It began slowly.
At first, James thought it was just in his head—the way the air in Père-Lachaise seemed thicker each time he stepped through the gates, how the world outside the cemetery felt a little more distant the longer he stayed. But then the changes started to show.
Regulus was different.
He no longer flickered at the edges like candlelight. His outline was sharper. His coat caught the wind. When he laughed, it wasn’t that soft, half-echoed sound James had grown used to—it was real. Crisp. Alive. James was even able to take photos of Regulus that caught a bit more of his appearance, instead of the half-hearted attempts that took a million tries just to catch a tiny orb.
James didn’t question it at first. He wanted to believe. But belief has consequences.
One morning, James reached out instinctively to brush a leaf from Regulus’s shoulder. He’d done it a hundred times before, fingers ghosting through cold nothing. This time, he felt it.
Fabric. Skin.
Regulus’s breath hitched. So did James’s.
“You’re… solid,” James murmured.
Regulus looked down at where they had touched. His brow furrowed. “I shouldn’t be.”
James pulled back slightly, unsure if he should apologize or marvel. “How is this happening?”
Regulus didn’t answer. He only looked at James—really looked at him—with an expression that made James’s chest ache. Fear. Wonder. Longing.
After that, it happened more often. Regulus would brush past and James would feel the pressure of fingers at his wrist. When James sat down, Regulus’s weight would dip the bench beside him, no longer just an impression of presence. A shadow followed him now—not always, but enough to be noticed. Reflected light caught faintly on Regulus’s rings. He left prints in the dew.
And James? James was changing too.
Mirrors took a moment longer to show his reflection. Sometimes his voice echoed faintly when he spoke, even in open air. Streetlamps sparked when he walked beneath them. Clocks ticked too slowly when he was near.
He started sleeping less. Dreaming more.
In dreams, Regulus was always alive. Not glowing, not translucent, not tethered to marble and silence—but laughing under sunlight, running down cobblestone streets, leaning in just close enough for his breath to touch James’s neck. Every time James woke, it took longer to remember which world was the dream, and honestly, which one James wanted to be the dream.
James had tried to take this as something that was a privilege instead of something to be afraid over. For example, a moment they had the other day:
They were sitting next to eachother and Regulus was reading aloud to James, stopping every now and then to make a reference to another piece of literature that he wanted James to read next. A small leaf had fallen on top of Regulus’s raven hair, James didn’t even say a word but he brushed the leaf off gently and fixed Regulus’s hair. Regulus didn’t even make a comment on it, he just turned his head slightly to look at James.
That’s when they found themselves only separated by about three inches of air and empty space, their breaths mingling, but when James looked down to Regulus’s lips and back up again, Regulus simply smiled and returned to reading the book.
The aspect of physical touch became more welcome as time went on. James would fix Regulus’s coat or hair, or his hand would brush over Regulus’s lower back slightly when he moved near him or walked past. It seemed natural to them when really it was anything but.
One day, as they sat together near Wilde’s grave, Regulus spoke quietly.
“You have to stop coming here.”
James frowned, the topic seemingly very random and out of character, but the way Regulus said it made James’s heart feel a bit heavy. “Why?”
Regulus hesitated. “Because I don’t think you’re leaving when you walk out of those gates anymore.”
James blinked. “I’m still here.” He said in a confused manner.
“But not all of you,” Regulus said. “And if you keep giving pieces of yourself away…” He trailed off. “You might not get them back. That’s just how interfering with reality works. You gain some, but you lose more than you think in the process.”
James swallowed. “Is that what’s happening to you? You interfere with life and get more of that?”
“No,” Regulus said while shaking his head. “No, I think I am how I’ve always been, only the way you’re able to perceive me is changing. Closer to death, the better that I seem, I guess.”
There was silence after that. The kind that settled deep in the bones and left a lingering feeling of anxiety and impending anguish.
James didn’t leave that evening. Not really. He wandered the city long past midnight, half-expecting to see Regulus in reflections, in windowpanes, in the corners of rooms. And sometimes, he did.
—
The issue that they wanted to avoid came the next night.
He was back at the cemetery, walking the gravel path between familiar graves, when a sound broke the stillness.
A bell.
Not from a church. It was older. Deeper. A note that seemed to vibrate through the stone beneath his feet, through his spine, through something older than his own memory.
Regulus froze. His eyes went distant.
“You heard that?” James asked.
Regulus didn’t answer right away. He was staring at the horizon, as though something waited just beyond the trees and lines of headstones.
“They know,” he said softly.
“Who does?”
Regulus turned to him, expression tight with something like dread. “The people who deal with the souls—I don’t know, I’ve never met them face to face. They know that we’re doing something that shouldn’t be possible. And they’re pushing back.”
James felt the chill settle into his chest. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Regulus said, taking a step away from James, “you’ve gotten too close to the dead.”
James held his ground. “Then let me stay.”
“No,” Regulus said immediately. “You can’t. You’re alive. You still belong to the world.”
“And you don’t?”
Regulus’s eyes flicked away. “I haven’t in a long time.”
James stepped closer. “But we found each other.”
Regulus shook his head. “This—whatever we are—is beautiful. But it isn’t life. And if you keep walking this road with me, one day you won’t be able to go back. And I don’t want to be the reason you lose your future.”
James hesitated.
And then, very quietly, he asked, “What if you’re the only future I want?”
Regulus didn’t answer, because the bell tolled again. And this time, the world shifted.
The trees bent slightly toward them. The sky darkened at the edges. The air trembled.
And James felt it—felt something invisible brush against his spine. A presence neither warm nor cold. Watching.
Calling.
Regulus stepped forward, placing both of his hands on James’s face. He was so real now. So painfully, impossibly there. James could feel the cold silver against his cheeks, the feeling of Regulus’s fingertips moving gently across his skin.
He looked achingly beautiful, and all the more devastating for James to take in.
“You have to choose,” he whispered, his voice achingly beautiful and heartbroken, as if he knew that one way or another, James would leave him.
James blinked. “Between what?”
Regulus swallowed. “Between going home or staying here in the cemetery with me. That’s life or death. Be smart about it James, but you have to leave.” He whispers hurredly but his gentle and guiding tone never falters. There are tears gathering in his eyes that he tries to blink away, James wants to hold him.
He’s decided this now. He wants to learn absolutely everything Regulus has to say, whether it’s about when he grew up, or the literature he loves, or the mythology behind astronomy that he has an interest in. James wants to learn everything that Regulus has endured in life, wants to speak every word that Regulus has ever spoken, he wants to love everything that Regulus has ever been and ever will be. He wants to cherish him and every moment he gets, but James blinks.
And then he was gone. The feeling of static seems to return to his face, right where Regulus is—was—touching him gently.
The world snapped back. The light returned. The trees straightened. The only thing that didn’t change was the swirling thoughts and aching heart of a man who only learned how to hold on the second that he was being forced to let go.
James stood alone beside a grave shaped like a boy, a single silver ring remained on the ground in front of it, which James picked up and put in his pocket without hesitation.
The wind whistled through the headstones, and somewhere far away, the bell stopped ringing.