Chapter Text
The first thing James heard once he sat down in the Great Hall for dinner, ravenous after a long Quidditch training session and desperate for some rest, was a sentence so outlandish he thought there were no original sentences left for Sirius to say.
“Prongs, did you know there’s apparently a Hogwarts Incest Map that shows practically everyone who’s shagged everyone?”
James blinked, and then he blinked again, the words taking a moment to register in his head, “Come again?”
Sirius pursed his lips, “I think most of them did.”
That earned the boy a swat on the shoulder from an unimpressed Remus sat next to him, who didn’t even have to look up from his book to aim correctly. Sirius pouted melodramatically at him as he rubbed the targeted spot.
James shook his head in disbelief, finding it difficult to wrap his head around the words that had just left his friends mouth, “I’m sorry, an Incest Map?”
“Anyone who’s ever done anything with something is on there,” Peter confirmed, talking around a mouthful of roast chicken, “kissing, shagging, scissoring - you name it, it’s on there.”
Sirius smirked at the boy from across the table, seemingly recovered from his injury, “You’ve got nothing to worry about then do you, Wormtail?”
Peter turned a dark shade of red and went back to quietly eating his chicken. James was in too much shock to defend the poor boy, luckily Remus stepped in - this time with an elbow into Sirius’ side. Sirius yelped and scowled at Remus but seemed to take the hint, falling quiet.
A map…showing everyone in Hogwarts who had been with someone? That sounded like the dumb shit they would do, James was almost offended he hadn’t thought of such a brilliant idea himself first. They were the creators of the Marauders Map after all - was someone trying to one up them?
“Have you seen this map?” James dared to ask, unsure of the answer he was hoping for.
Remus took the liberty to speak this time, not without giving Sirius a stern look beforehand that said don’t you even think about opening your mouth again.
“No, not yet, I managed to convince these two to wait until after you’d had dinner to go.” Remus sounded awfully like an exasperated parent fed up with the antics of his children, James supposed that image wasn’t exactly too far off reality.
“Where even is it - who did it?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders, “Nobody knows who's behind it yet, but it was found by a third year in the abandoned Potions classroom - you know the one that was half blown-up last year?”
James vaguely recalled an incident involving a first year and a potion gone wrong resulting in an explosion that wiped out nearly half the classroom. Luckily no one was hurt, but it did mean James had to take all his classes in a different room an extra 5 flights upstairs. That, he was not impressed with.
“Who would do that?” James mumbled, more to himself than anyone else.
Sirius wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at him from across the table, “Scared your name’s going to be on it, Prongsy?”
James snorted, unable to control himself. “I’d be more worried about your name being on it than mine, Padfoot.”
He started to pile food onto his plate, eager to see what the map was really all about, and, he would admit, apprehensive to see where his name appeared on it. James wasn’t like Sirius, evidence didn’t actually exist to point towards any inappropriate behaviour on his behalf, but rumours spread like wildfire at Hogwarts - once that flame was lit, there was no way in hell it was ever getting put out.
And James would rather not garner himself a reputation he couldn’t easily get rid of.
“I shudder to think what kind of problems this is going to cause,” Remus gestured over to the Slytherin table where a group of fourth years were having, what looked like, a rather heated discussion. Half the girls were in tears whilst shouting at the boys in an accusatory manner.
Sirius waved his hand dismissively, “It’s just sex, people will get over it.”
Remus stiffened at that response and promptly went back to reading his book. James quickly shovelled the rest of the food on his plate into his mouth before taking a huge gulp of water. He downed the glass and smacked his lips together with a satisfied sigh.
“Well,” James clapped his hands together, “should we go check out this map?”
<>
“What the fuck do you mean everyone knows?”
“I mean everyone knows.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don’t know, but don’t look at me! Someone must’ve just stumbled upon it - I kept our little secret nice and safe.”
“Clearly fucking not, Barty!”
Regulus paced up and down the lengths of his dorm room, one hand on his hip, the other in between his lips as he frantically chewed on his nails. Barty was slouched on his bed, looking far too calm for Regulus’ liking when the world was crumbling at their feet.
“Reg, stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
Barty fixed him with a look, “The pacing, stop, it's putting me on edge.”
Regulus threw his hands up in exasperation, stopping his pacing only to send a withering glare in Barty’s direction - if looks could kill, he would be a dead man. “You should be on edge - do you have any idea what’s at stake here?”
The other boy smirked, “Certainly not your love life, in order to be worried about people finding out about it, you have to have had one in the first place, Reg.”
“This isn’t fucking funny, Barty,” Regulus snapped, “we’ve single-handedly broken up half the relationships in this school with that map, what do you think will happen once everyone finds out that we’re the ones responsible for that?”
Barty looked confused, “Is that supposed to be a bad thing or…?”
“Oh, sorry - I forget you're a heartless prick who doesn’t know the meaning of sympathy,” Regulus deadpanned.
Barty feigned a dramatic clutch at his heart, gasping in mock-offence, “Words hurt, Reggie - and it’s not exactly like you’re sunshine and rainbows yourself.”
The audacity of his friend to be able to joke made Regulus want to bang his head against the wall repeatedly. Barty should’ve counted himself lucky that Regulus hadn’t murdered him yet, the boy would’ve done if it hadn’t meant being left to take all the blame himself - that was enough for him to think twice.
He crossed his arms angrily, resuming his pacing out of spite, “We should’ve never done it.”
“I think it's possibly the best thing we’ve ever done,” Barty disagreed, his face too proud for Regulus’ liking.
“It was stupid, do you know how much trouble we’re going to get in?”
Barty wagged his finger at Regulus and tutted, “You’re missing out the part where nobody knows it was us, dear Reggie.”
“Our names don’t appear on it nearly half as much as everyone else’s does, it's going to be obvious.”
“You think too much, Reg.”
Regulus scowled over his shoulder, “You don’t think enough.”
Maybe he should’ve been impressed by how calm his friend could be in such a dire situation, but the cold sweat plaguing his entire body made it difficult to focus on anything other than the deep shit they had gotten themselves into.
What if Sirius knew? What would he say - would he even say anything? How would all the others react?
Perhaps Regulus was overthinking as Barty suggested, but Sirius meant far too much for him not to consider all options. He’d lost his older brother once before, Regulus was prepared to risk everything to ensure that never happened again. If Sirius did find out, if he already knew, Regulus had to do his best to fix the mistake he’d made - or he would never forgive himself.
“Hey,” Barty called out to him, drawing Regulus out of his thoughts, “I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as you say.”
Regulus shook his head, “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me.”
“I could lose him,” Regulus’ voice trembled and he turned his back to Barty, “Sirius might hate me.”
He heard Barty sigh behind him and then footsteps approaching, a gentle hand landed on Regulus’ shoulder and he internally cursed himself for appearing so weak. The thought of Walburga seeing him like that - the idea alone made Regulus straighten up and clear his throat almost automatically, pushing down the knot that had formed in his stomach. He could sense the pity from his friend and it made his skin crawl.
“He’s your brother, he could never hate you, Reg - not over something as harmless as a crush.”
You’d be surprised, Regulus thought but didn’t voice. Instead, he nodded, mustering up the best smile he could as he faced Barty again. By the look that his friend gave him, Regulus didn’t do a great job.
“Nobody knows it was us, okay?”
Regulus nodded again but didn’t feel overly calmer about the ordeal. It had been a stupid idea in the first place, something Barty and him had started all the way back in second year, when everyone was having their ‘first kisses’ and the whole prospect of girls and relationships was gross. But then things had gotten more exciting, rumours of people in the years above doing all sorts of things reached their ears and they couldn’t help but add it to the silly map. Regulus should’ve known that it would get out of hand, that it wouldn’t stay their little secret forever, but it had been fun.
He could hardly remember the last time he’d done something like that - had he ever? Sirius was normally the one doing stupid things, and it felt good to be the one doing it for a change.
It was never meant to be anything serious, even less something to be discovered by the entire school. There was hardly a name that hadn’t made it onto the map one way or another, and that meant it was the entire school versus Regulus and Barty.
It was an understatement to say that the two boys were utterly fucked, and no matter how desperately he wanted to, there was no way to take it back. Regulus could feel the dirt being thrown on top of his coffin.
“Hey, look at me.” Barty’s voice cut through the spiral of anxiety in Regulus’ mind and he met his friends' gaze reluctantly.
A look of understanding passed over Barty. He offered a reassuring smile, but even Regulus could see how it didn’t quite reach the other boy’s eyes - even he knew there was relatively no escape.
“It’s going to be okay.” Barty squeezed Regulus’ shoulder, “I promise.”
Funnily enough, Regulus didn’t believe a single word he said.
<>
Now, James wasn’t exactly sure what he had been expecting of this mysterious Incest Map, but the complex web of lines, squiggles, colours and sparkles in front of him, and dozens upon dozens of names littering the wall, ranging all the way from “snogged” to “scissored”, was certainly not it.
People had been full-named on the map, their most recent hook-ups and relationships exposed by the simple draw of a line. A huge key ran down beside the circle of names, detailing what line meant what, which included, but was not limited to: shagged, snogged, topped, fingered, scissored.
It was…a lot, to say the least. Whoever had done it had clearly put considerable time into it. However problematic it might’ve been, James had to admit, it was incredibly impressive - there was some powerful magic at play that was for certain.
“Holy shit,” Sirius murmured from beside James, his eyes glued to the map in front of them. Each boy was equally fascinated by what stood in front of them.
“This is so much worse than I thought,” Peter murmured in shock, “this is like…everyone.”
Peter wasn’t wrong, the map did pretty much have most people’s names mentioned once, if not more. His eyes danced across the different names that popped up, unable to stop himself from gasping when he landed on two familiar names with a rather interesting connection.
“Mary’s scissored Marlene?”
Sirius’ head turned so fast James was surprised the boy didn’t get whiplash. He looked at James with wide, horrified eyes, “She’s what?!”
“Look,” James pointed at her name and the curly line that flowed from it all the way to Marlene’s. Sirius followed his line of sight and squinted closely at it, as if unable to believe what he was reading.
“Since when did that happen?” Sirius mumbled to himself before he suddenly grabbed hold of James’ arm, his grip hard, “Look, it's me!”
James peered closer and sure enough, there was Sirius’ name, written in fancy italics, and along with it, a rather ridiculous amount of lines connecting to different girls. James frowned at the number of unfamiliar names there, it worried him slightly - when on earth did Sirius have time for this?
“Mate,” James couldn’t help but scoff, “you might have a problem.”
Sirius side-eyed him, “Are you slut-shaming me, Prongs?”
Remus, who had been oddly quiet up until this point, cleared his throat pointedly. Both boys turned to stare at him - he did not look impressed.
“You snogged Marlene?” Remus asked, a hint of betrayal in his voice that James didn’t understand the meaning of.
Sirius scratched the back of his neck and chuckled nervously, “Poor judgement on my part - happened ages ago.”
“When?” Remus narrowed his eyes dangerously, and it almost felt like there was no right answer to the question.
James felt somewhat caught between the exchange, mostly because he was literally in between the two boys, but also because it felt like he was missing a crucial part of the conversation - and it was rare that James didn’t know everything going on.
“The party - you know when we won against the Slytherins?”
Remus glanced back up at the map, his eyes strangely glossy, “Who’s Ruby? When did you shag her?”
Sirius winced, “Not so long ago.”
“And Elizabeth?”
“Beginning of the year.”
“Nicole-”
James decided it was probably best to step in, whatever kind of feud his two friends were having he would rather they did it in private, where Peter and himself weren’t at risk of being caught in the crossfire.
“Pete, are you up here anywhere?” He asked, successfully pivoting the conversation away from whatever that was about. Sirius flashed him a grateful smile whilst Remus shot him a withering glare.
Peter squirmed next to James, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth, and didn’t answer. James frowned and followed his line of gaze onto the map, Remus sighed from beside him and pointed towards the bottom left of the wall.
“Sorry, Pete.” Remus rubbed a comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder, “Don’t let it get to you.”
James’ eyes landed on the words in question and felt a pang of sympathy. His name was on the map, surprisingly, but not for reason the rest of everyone elses names were. In bold, italic writing next to Peter’s name were the words Forever Virgin.
It was mean, of course, but it arguably could’ve been a lot worse. James shot the boy a sympathetic smile and shrugged, "At least you aren’t like Sirius, he’s practically community di-”
The moment was cut short by the arrival of Lily and Mary, who came barrelling over to the four boys, their eyes equally captivated by the map. Mary immediately went over to Sirius, throwing a friendly arm over the boy's shoulder that Remus practically grimaced at, and Lily settled herself in between James and Peter, a bubble of laughter escaping her.
“Oh my god,” Lily shook her head in disbelief, “it really is a sex map of Hogwarts.”
James smiled at the awe-stricken look on the girl's face, she was always so animated with her emotions, something that the boy had always admired about her.
“Oh, it's me!” Lily pointed at her name, somewhat in the centre of the map, “And you, James!”
James swivelled his head embarrassingly quickly at that, eager to see what the map had to say about him. He let out an audible sigh of relief when the only name near him was Lily, a zig-zagged line between them that, according to the key, meant “snogged.”
Phew, not exactly new information to anyone.
Lily giggled next to him, a tease in her voice, “Aw, I’m the only girl you’ve kissed, Potter?”
James rolled his eyes affectionately, “Yeah, yeah laugh it up, Evans. God forbid a man is a gentleman these days.”
And it was true, Lily was the only person James had ever kissed. It had happened back in fifth year, when his universally-known crush on her had finally seemed to manifest into reality - if that wasn’t proof of manifestation James didn’t know what was. They’d kissed at the Gryffindor Christmas party and dated for a few weeks after, but it didn’t take long for the both of them to realise that there was just something…missing.
Lily was a beautiful girl, incredibly intelligent and witty, but James didn’t have that spark with her that he used to have - or maybe it was never there in the first place. Perhaps all the excitement of having his first proper crush just made him think that there was something special between them. Either way, they’d decided it would be better to remain friends, which James was incredibly grateful for.
He may not have been in love with Lily, but there was no doubt that he still loved her - having her as just a friend was more than he could ever ask for.
Mary’s bark of laughter drew James’ attention over to her and Sirius, the boy did not look overly impressed with the girl.
“Blimey, Black, you’ve gotten around haven’t you?” Mary teased as Sirius huffed and shrugged off the arm she still had around his shoulders.
“It’s not just me,” Sirius defended, “I’m not nearly the worst person on here!”
Remus crossed his arms matter-of-factly, “You’re almost as bad as the Slytherins.”
James spied closer to the map to spot the familiar names. Snape was there with only one sentence, in love with Lily Potter, James smirked at that, Narcissa and Lucius were soulmates apparently, and Evan Rosier, well, he was like the Slytherin version of Sirius. A handful of names sprung out from lines from his name, detailing a mixture of topping, shagging and snogging.
Suddenly Sirius shrieked, a hand flying up to his mouth rather dramatically as he did so. “Rosier has snogged my baby brother?”
Mary burst out laughing, “Hell yeah, get it Rosier!”
Sirius glowered at her, “This is not funny, Macdonald, why the fuck is Evan Rosier deflowering my little, baby brother?”
“Don’t be so crass, Sirius.” Lily reprimanded, “Regulus is sixteen he can do what he wants.”
Mary smirked, “More like who he wants.”
“I hate you all, this is disgusting.”
Peter threw his hands up in the air in offence, “Hey, what have I done?”
James laughed at his friend's antics, equally as surprised by the information regarding Regulus’ apparent love life. The boy had always just assumed that the younger Black didn’t really have one, which, upon reflection, was a silly conclusion to reach. Even James could admit how devilishly attractive Sirius’ younger brother was. It was the Black genes after all - sharp cheekbones, porcelain skin and thick, raven-coloured hair. It would take considerable effort not to be born attractive in their family.
But Regulus had always been very much off limits, not that the boy would’ve had any interest in James to begin with, all he was to Regulus was his older brother’s annoying best friend, he’d made it quite clear how much he despised James. He didn’t really mind though, someone as gorgeous as Regulus could get away with murder for all he wanted.
See, Sirius was handsome, but Regulus…Regulus was beautiful.
Not that James had thought about it much though, of course. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel the slightest pang of disappointment to see that Regulus had kissed someone, and that someone hadn’t been him.
Snap out of it, James.
“Aw,” Lily cooed, bumping shoulders with James and interrupting his train of thought, “Marlene and Dorcas are on here.”
“Haven’t they only been out a few weeks?” Peter questioned.
Remus, eyes still trained sharply on Sirius and Mary, replied, “Word travels fast in Hogwarts.”
“How fast?” James wondered out loud, “Who could possibly know all of this information?”
Sirius, who had finished squabbling with Mary, joined back into the conversation, seemingly calmer than he was before, “Maybe it's our close and personal friend Albus, he seems like the only one with power to know all of this, no?”
Peter scrunched up his nose in disgust, “Dumbledore? I think that's a serious safety concern if the headmaster is making maps of his students' sexual encounters.”
“Maybe he’s a pervert."
A chorus of repulsed groans and ‘ews’ resounded from the group. Lily shot Sirius a withering look, “Don’t be so revolting.”
Sirius shrugged innocently, “I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.”
“Nobody was thinking that,” Remus clarified, followed by a wave of affirming nods from the rest of them.
James shivered internally at the thought of Albus Dumbledore knowing about his love life, and not only knowing but dedicating an entire map to it. No, it had to be a student.
“I can’t believe someone created a Hogwarts hook-up map,” Mary reiterated, “who knew we were all such sluts, eh?”
James cocked an eyebrow at her, unsure where the ‘we’ was coming from.
Sirius huffed out a laugh, “By ‘we’, I think you mean us.”
A moment of silence passed as the group ogled the map in front of them, trying to make sense of all the intertwined names. Remus cleared his throat awkwardly after a moment, a hint of wariness in his voice that caught everyone’s attention.
“Um, Prongs, is there any reason your name has a line drawn to Regulus?”
“What?”
Everyone’s head snapped towards James’ direction at once, the boy didn’t dare meet any of their gazes. His eyes followed where Remus was staring, eyes bulging, and James felt his heart skip ten beats all at once.
There it was. The line was so thin he’d missed it the first time, but now it stood out on the map like a sore thumb - it was the only thing James could focus on, his eyes glued to it like a magnet.
A small, golden line, trailing all the way from James’ name, right to Regulus’.
Regulus. Sirius’ younger brother - the boy that couldn’t have been possibly more off limits and someone James had, as much to the disappointment of his deep and dark desires, not at all hooked-up with.
But here it was on the map, their names connected, for everyone to see.
Sirius was the first to break the deafening silence that had fallen over the group, his words coming out as a low growl more than anything else.
“What the fuck, Prongs?”
James shook his head wildly, still unable to draw his eyes away from the map, “No - no Sirius, we haven’t, I swear I haven’t-”
“Have you been fucking my baby brother?”
Sirius made to step towards James but Mary pulled him back by his shoulders, “Calm the fuck down, Black.”
The boy whirled around to face her, a look of utter disbelief on his face, “Calm down? You’re telling me to calm down when he’s been shagging my brother?” Sirius jabbed an accusatory finger in James’ direction.
This was bad, this was really, really bad.
James turned to face the two of them, his eyes wide with panic as he held his arms up in surrender, “Sirius, I swear to you I haven’t done anything with Regulus.”
Sirius pointed angrily at the map, where their two names were connected with the golden thread, as if it was definitive proof that James had been screwing his brother behind his back. His eyes held a murderous look in them that James had never seen before, but the spark of fierce protectiveness surrounding that - James had see that before. It was the kind of protectiveness that could only be elicited by the mention of his younger brother.
For the first time in his life, James actually thought Sirius was going to kill him. With his wand or with his bare hands, James didn’t know, but he was sure as hell about to find out.
Because if he’d learnt anything in life, it was that - don’t lay a finger on Sirius Black’s younger brother.
“Do you really expect me to believe-”
Lilly gasped quietly beside James, “Guys, wait-”
Sirius continued, “-you, when it’s right there?”
James’ heart was in his throat as he begged, “No, please Sirius, I would never-”
“Guys, look at the-”
“How dare you betray me-”
“SHUT UP!”
Lily’s shout silenced them all immediately, Sirius’ jaw snapped shut comically fast and both boys whirled around to face her. She had an exasperated look on her face, her eyebrow raised angrily at the both of them, her arms firmly crossed over her chest.
“If you two idiots bothered to actually read the map, you would notice this.” Lily directed their attention towards the key on the right hand side of the wall, “Each line has a meaning, the one between James’ and Regulus’ is golden - destined.”
“Destined?” James and Sirius exclaimed at the same time, equal confusion evident in their voices.
Mary snorted, “What, like star-crossed lovers?”
Sirius pounced back onto James, “The shagging wasn’t enough for you, then? He’s your fucking soulmate, too?”
Lily interjected before James had the chance to respond. She let out an aggravated grunt, fed up with their antics, and Peter, who was still beside her, curled in on himself as if she was going to lash out on him next.
“Everyone’s business is on this map, who they’ve shagged and who they’ve snogged, don’t you think that if James was, as you so crudely put it, ‘fucking your baby brother’, it would say it on the map?”
For once, Sirius actually remained quiet for a moment. Everyone in the group stared at him with apprehension, not sure if he was going to pull his wand out and curse them all into oblivion or accept what Lily was saying. James braised himself for the former.
“Lily has a point.” Remus eyed Sirius wearily, “The map doesn’t say they actually did anything, and considering everything else on there,” he gave the boy a targeted look, “I don’t exactly think it's lying.”
“It’s not lying!” James burst out, before realising his slight mistake, his ears turning red, “I-I mean, it is, me and Regulus we’re not - we’re not destined, or whatever, you know. But that’s because there’s nothing going on between us, I swear…I swear on Pete’s life!”
Peter’s head snapped up. “Don’t drag me into this!”
Sirius fixed James with a long, hard stare. The boy’s eyebrows were pinched together in deep concentration, his eyes unwavering as he took in every inch of James’ face. It was incredibly unsettling, it felt like Sirius was actually looking into his soul, searching for all his dark secrets, for any sign that he was being lied to.
Nobody said anything for a moment, waiting anxiously for Sirius to make his verdict. After a minute or so of tense silence, the boy pulled back, seeming satisfied that he hadn’t found any reason to doubt James - for the moment at least. James wasn’t dumb enough to think he’d been let off the hook that easily, especially when it concerned Regulus. The boy would be sure to sleep with one eye open for the next few months at a minimum.
“You’re my best mate, Sirius,” James said earnestly, “I would never do that to you.”
The other boy finally huffed in defeat, the anger from his face dispelling enough to make James feel like he was able to breathe again. Sirius threw his arms up in frustration before placing them on his hips.
“Okay, fine!” He admitted, “So you haven’t shagged, brilliant, but what the fuck does destined mean?”
“Honestly mate,” James turned back to the map, his eyes practically burning holes into the golden line, “I wish I knew.”