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“Come on, Jamesy boy, Moony’ll be by soon.”
They’d been called into a meeting with Dumbledore’s Order. Sirius hadn’t even wanted to go, had been feeling too impatient lately to follow proper orders. The only reason he’d agreed was because Moony wanted to gather as much intel on Fenrir Greyback as he could, and the pair weren’t willing to separate unless absolutely necessary.
Normally it was a bit annoying, but James supposed he ought to be grateful for it now—that special (supposed to be secret) codependent bond linking them together. It meant that the brunt of Sirius’ rage (and grief) could be dispersed between them.
The moment Dumbledore had broken the news, Sirius nearly collapsed, dark eyes turning to pitch, his breathing going shallow.
It was all James could do: sling a useless arm around his best friend’s shoulder and murmur pointless platitudes, half choking on the tears he refused to let fall, while Remus did the real heavy lifting, pressing wordless kisses into every surface of Sirius he could manage: his brow, his forehead, both cheeks, each fingertip.
Every kiss had James’ ears burning, chest tightening, unable to look away.
Unable to fully suppress the fleeting feeling of those lips pressed to his own. Of sharing breaths and secrets and silent promises of more. Of the way their bodies had fit together in the dark, with curious hands and synched-up heartbeats and—
He knew he had no right to this—to the pressure building and burning behind his own eyes, the ache spreading out from his chest, tingling down into his toes and fingertips, threatening to end him. To the jealousy that was making it so much worse.
That Sirius had someone to guide him through the worst of it.
And even as James thought it, he hated himself for it.
This grief was stolen at best, and so he simply wouldn’t allow it to exist. Not here. Not now. Not when Sirius hadn’t managed to swallow even a bite of toast or string together more than a few words for the past four days.
Not since he’d heard the news.
That his baby brother likely wasn’t ever coming home (not that either of them really had a home to return to). That the last words they’d spoken to each other (shouted, really) would, in fact, be the last.
That last summer would be their final summer.
James wouldn’t ever get more than he’d already gotten.
And if he was honest—really, truly, properly honest—that really left him sliced open, bleeding out into the threadbare rug. Ready to follow his best friend’s baby brother into his unknown fate. Because all of it was just like last summer. Made up almost entirely of stolen things.
Of glances and near touches and moments tucked away. Of nipping into the kitchen in the middle of the night for a warm mug of sweet milk to lull them both back to sleep. Of toes touching beneath the dining room table in a room full of family who were all none the wiser. Of a smile here and there that felt rare and gifted and downright sinful, the way it made the saddest set of eyes shine with the glow of the sun.
Hmmm, the sun. That’s what Reg had called him while they’d baked, rolling in the tall grass stretching on for acres. Toes tucked in the cool stream slicing through the meadow. Fingers laced, tracing those constellations.
Back then, Reg had had stars in his eyes, just like the one he’d been named for. Back then, looking at him felt like seeing a whole solar system: something boundless and beautiful and all-seeing. Too bad then that Reg couldn’t really see the truth of things. Turns out he’d be gone before he could. The sun he’d always named in James was just a selfish, feckless being.
Staking claim on a thing he had no right to hold. No right to ownership over the boy he couldn’t even save.
The boy he’d fallen for before he’d even truly noticed. So slow that James thought he’d been imagining things. So sudden that his heart skipping all those beats scared him half to death.
He never would’ve believed (or even dared to dream) he could’ve been his.
And all of that had no place here. Not really. Not when preparations were in order, with a best mate to support and arrangements to be made, and a war to win.
Even still, every time there was a knock at the door that they didn’t have leave to open, he was taken back. To the start of that damned summer, where a quieter knock at dinner time had not been enough to catch the Potters off guard (although they hadn’t been expecting anyone). James’ mother only unsheathed her wand and set up a space for who they all knew would be standing there, even before James skipped across the foyer to throw open the door. In fact, if James had been a betting man, there wasn’t a single speck of gold in all of the family vaults that he wouldn’t have bet on the family’s second son in every way but by blood: early and insistent and always welcome.
Perhaps it was lucky, then, that he wasn’t keen on gambling, because the one standing in the doorway, dark hood pulled down past his brows to obscure his face, shoulders rounded and trembling, wasn’t Sirius Black.
It was his baby brother. It was Regulus.
He’d had to be coaxed inside, to the warmth and the light. “I’m sorry.” He’d kept saying, voice hollow and broken and sounding so scared.
James hadn’t known what to do then either, was far too useless to do more than he was now: platitudes and back pats overflowing. Awkward smiles and awkward silence stretching on between them.
But Merlin, how things could change over the course of a season. The way things had been far simpler as young boys: as a seeker turned prefect was now a soldier. That was the way the summer had turned. From timid to sugar sweet to shit. All in the blink of an eye.
That final night, was a sticky summer’s evening, with heavy clouds hanging too low in the sky. The air was thick with the static of a nearby storm. So when the owl arrived, one from the Black estate carrying a note tightly rolled and pressed with the green wax of Orion’s seal, James had known.
He’d excused himself to let the brothers talk, to sort through the mess that had only just settled down. He settled at the bottom of the stairs, heart heavy, head in his lap.
He wasn’t sure how long he waited, ears half strained, half set on tuning out the sounds of the storm that was brewing. Thunder and lightning and the pitter-patter of the foretold rain. All of it melded together with the brothers shouting, voices overlapping in a sad little symphony. One that finally ended when the other, the elder, finally put them all out of their misery—finally cracked the lid on the box that suspended the cat in the liminal space between life and death. His words were clearer, harsher. Hardly meant, but from the temper he was known for: “If you walk out that door, don’t ever come back.”
So James had turned then, to face the door that slowly creaked open. Unsurprised and horrified to see the same boy he’d seen months earlier: dark hood pulled down past his brows to obscure his face, shoulders rounded and trembling. They locked eyes for a moment—only a moment—and James was on his feet. He threw his arms around the broken boy, rubbing soothing circles into the small of his back, across broad shoulders, fingers fisting in his hair. “I’m sorry,” he’d kept saying, voice hollow and broken and sounding so scared, so sure. “I—I have to go. My father… he… I have to go and be with Mother.”
Go… he had to go.
“You’re. Leaving.” James had to force the words out, thick as they were on his tongue. It had not been a question, just as Regulus had not seemed open to a proper discussion. Apparently, whatever had been in that letter, whatever else Sirius had said, was more than enough.
“Yes,” was Regulus’ answer. Him breaking those promises they hadn’t dared to ever even speak aloud.
Because he had to go.
James did not respond. He couldn’t. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe past the rampaging wind whipping at their faces and clothes, sending the water droplets sideways so that they were soaked through to the bone.
He was breaking, shaking, shivering, but not from the summer rain.
“I’m sorry,” Regulus said again, this time with squared shoulders as he untangled himself from James’ embrace. This time seeming at least mostly sure.
But James still wasn’t breathing. He let his arms fall limp at his sides, not even bothering to clear his glasses, unwilling to see through the spray set on blinding him. Unwilling to watch the boy walking away.
“Goodbye,” he’d said as the lightning shot across the blackening sky.
Finally shocking James back to life, back to movement, back to the words he’d kept buried for half the summer. For fear. For this.
“But I…” James began. Finally brave.
But before he could finish, there was a crack, and Regulus was gone. Shattering the silence. Shattering his heart.
“... love you.”
The words fell like the rain, crashing, shattering against the cobblestones.
All those stolen moments, spoiled and gone to shit. All before he’d even gotten a chance to name it. To claim it. To hold it.
All he could hold now was his best friend. The brother he had left, falling to pieces before him.