Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The project was, in theory, supposed to be educational.

That was always how the worst ideas started.

It had been announced at the end of class with the sort of brisk, official cheer that meant no one was allowed to complain until it was already too late. A practical assignment. A controlled field test. A demonstration of applied magical adaptability under historical conditions, involving minor temporal displacement, cultural blending, language charms, clothing transfiguration, concealment theory, and survival without attracting Muggle attention.

A week in the past.

Not far in the past, they had been assured.

A few years at most.

“Which is still mental,” James Potter had said at once, because James Potter had never met a rule, assignment, or ancient magical precaution he did not instinctively want to heckle. “Sorry, are we all just calmly accepting the phrase minor temporal displacement like that isn’t how people lose limbs?”

“It’s supervised,” Lily Evans had said, though even she had looked wary.

Mary Macdonald had leaned toward Marlene and whispered, “That is what they always say before something explodes.”

“They also said the frog choir incident was supervised,” Marlene had muttered back.

On the opposite side of the classroom, Barty Crouch Jr. had looked delighted.

Not interested.

Not curious.

Delighted.

His eyes had lit up in the specific way that made everyone who knew him immediately uncomfortable.

“Oh, this is going to be brilliant,” he had said.

Evan Rosier had glanced at him. “That’s the face you make before detention.”

“That’s the face I make before history.”

“That’s worse.”

Regulus Black, seated beside Pandora Rosier with one elbow on the desk and his chin resting against his knuckles, had looked completely unbothered.

“This is going to be tedious,” he had said.

Pandora, who had been doodling tiny stars around the edge of her parchment, had smiled faintly. “Or stylish.”

Regulus had eyed her. “No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it.”

“I think lots of things.”

“Yes, and most of them involve me being dressed like someone’s haunted porcelain doll.”

Pandora had blinked at him with huge innocent eyes.

Dorcas Meadowes had snorted into her hand.

The grouping had been the part that nearly caused a riot.

The Gryffindors were assigned together: Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Lily Evans, Mary Macdonald, Marlene McKinnon, Alice Fortescue, Frank Longbottom, Fabian Prewett, and Gideon Prewett.

Then, as if the universe had decided subtlety was for cowards, Regulus Black and his friends were added to the same group: Barty Crouch Jr., Evan Rosier, Pandora Rosier, and Dorcas Meadowes.

There had been a silence.

A grand silence.

A silence with pillars.

Sirius had turned slowly toward Regulus, eyebrows rising.

Regulus had stared back, expression flat.

James had looked between them with bright, meddlesome hope. “This’ll be fun.”

“No,” Regulus and Sirius had said at the same time.

Then Sirius had grinned.

Regulus had sighed.

The spell circle was drawn in chalk, silver dust, and powdered moonstone, surrounded by three professors, five safety wards, and a stern warning that anyone who attempted to bring back historical artefacts would be scrubbing cauldrons until their grandchildren graduated.

“Your goal,” the professor had said, “is to remain unnoticed. Survive one week. Adapt. Use magic discreetly and intelligently. Transfigure appropriate clothing. Use language spells where necessary. Blend into the time period. Do not interfere with events. Do not reveal yourselves as witches and wizards. Do not panic.”

“That last one feels optimistic,” Peter whispered.

“Quiet,” Lily whispered back.

The chalk lines began to glow.

The air tightened.

The room bent.

James made a noise halfway between a laugh and a prayer.

Barty shouted, “Oh, that is absolutely not meant to be doing that—”

And then the world dropped out from beneath them.

For one impossible second, there was no floor, no ceiling, no breath, no classroom. Just light and noise and a rushing sensation like being pulled through a keyhole by the bones.

Then they hit pavement.

Not gracefully.

Sixteen teenagers tumbled out of nowhere into a narrow alleyway that smelled of smoke, rain, dustbins, old brick, and something fried.

James landed on top of Sirius.

Sirius landed on top of Fabian.

Fabian landed on the ground and immediately began swearing.

Peter rolled into a metal bin with a hollow clang.

Mary grabbed Lily, Lily grabbed Alice, Alice grabbed Frank, and Frank somehow ended up standing upright with all three of them clinging to his sleeves.

Marlene landed in a crouch like she had planned it, looked around, and said, “Nobody saw that.”

A car horn blared somewhere beyond the alley.

Everyone froze.

It was not a Hogwarts corridor. It was not Hogsmeade. It was not a sleepy lane in the near past.

Beyond the alley mouth, a wide street gleamed beneath grey daylight, busy with cars unlike the ones any of them knew properly, all polished curves and chrome teeth. Men in hats strode past with newspapers tucked under their arms. Women in neat dresses and gloves moved in clusters. Shop signs glowed. Smoke curled above rooftops. Somewhere, music crackled faintly through an open doorway.

Remus pushed himself up slowly, dusting off his sleeves. “That’s... not a few years.”

Dorcas peered toward the street, eyes narrowing. “That is definitely not Britain.”

Sirius looked at Regulus.

Regulus looked at Sirius.

James looked at the cars.

Peter, still half-sprawled against the bin, whispered, “Oh.”

Barty turned his head very slowly.

Peter whispered again, this time with reverence, “Oh, no.”

Barty’s mouth fell open.

Peter pointed toward the street at the same time Barty did.

“Chicago,” they both said.

Everyone stared at them.

Peter blinked.

Barty blinked.

Then they both said, in perfect unison, “Nineteen-fifties.”

A second silence fell.

This one was smaller than the classroom silence, but much more alarmed.

James pushed his glasses up his nose. “Sorry. What?”

Peter scrambled to his feet, suddenly brighter than half of them had ever seen him. “Chicago. The cars, the signs, the clothes—look at the hats, look at the cuts, look at the storefronts. This is post-war America. Nineteen-fifties, probably early to mid—”

“Could be mid,” Barty cut in, stepping beside him, eyes sharp and shining. “Look at the car fins, the wider bodies, the chrome. Not forties. Not sixties yet. Also the signage, the street style, the men’s suits—”

“Wider lapels before narrowing properly.”

“Exactly.”

“And the women’s skirts—”

“Full skirts and gloves, but not quite early forties rationing cuts.”

“Exactly.”

Barty and Peter turned to stare at each other.

A strange and terrible thing happened.

They smiled.

Not politely.

Not normally.

They smiled like two people who had just discovered the other one kept the same illegal collection of stolen dragon teeth under the bed.

“You know this stuff?” Barty asked.

Peter drew himself up a little, looking both pleased and bashful. “I loved history when I was little.”

“I know loads about this.”

“Really?”

“I’m Italian,” Barty said, as if this explained absolutely everything. “I wanted to be a mobster with a tommy gun.”

Remus closed his eyes.

Lily said, “Of course you did.”

“I had plans.”

Marlene stared at him. “At what age?”

Barty waved a hand. “Emotionally? Seven. Spiritually? Still ongoing.”

Peter’s face had gone dreamy with recognition. “The organised crime history in Chicago is actually fascinating, especially culturally, because—”

“Because it’s all tied into immigration, neighbourhood control, Prohibition legacy, and post-war policing,” Barty said rapidly.

Peter gasped. “Yes.”

Barty stepped closer. “And the fashion—”

“The music—”

“The cars—”

“The slang—”

“The politics—”

“The violence—”

“The diners—”

“The hats—”

“The hats,” Peter agreed with deep feeling.

Fabian looked at Gideon. “We’ve lost him.”

Gideon nodded gravely. “He belongs to Barty now.”

Frank, who had been watching the alley entrance with growing anxiety, cleared his throat. “Not to interrupt whatever this is becoming, but we are standing in an alley in the wrong country, twenty years in the past.”

Barty and Peter both jolted.

“Oh,” Peter said.

“Right,” Barty said. “Survival first. Obsessive historical commentary second.”

“Or quietly during survival,” Peter offered.

Barty pointed at him. “I like you.”

James clapped his hands once, far too loudly.

Everyone hissed at him.

He winced. “Right. Sorry. American pavement. Forgot.”

Regulus, who had been standing very still near the wall with his arms crossed, looked toward the street as if personally offended by the entire continent.

“America,” he said.

Sirius glanced sideways at him. “You sound like you’ve bitten a lemon.”

“I hate it already.”

“You’ve been here for two minutes.”

“I’ve formed an opinion.”

“You formed that opinion before we landed.”

“And I was correct.”

Mary rubbed both hands over her face. “We need to move before someone comes down this alley.”

“First priority,” Remus said, voice low and steady, “we hide properly. Then clothes. Then money. Then somewhere safe to stay.”

“Language,” Lily added. “Accents. Slang. Muggle manners.”

“Not looking like we fell out of a Scottish castle would also help,” Alice said.

Everyone looked down at themselves.

Robes.

School jumpers.

Cloaks.

Shoes meant for stone corridors.

It was, collectively, not subtle.

Marlene grimaced. “We look like a theatre group got mugged by a wardrobe.”

Pandora perked up.

Regulus immediately pointed at her. “No.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You inhaled creatively.”

Pandora smiled. “Everyone needs clothing.”

“I can dress myself.”

“You can, but will you?”

Dorcas looked him up and down. “She’s got a point.”

Regulus glared at her.

Evan, leaning against the brick wall, folded his arms. “We need to get the era right. If we stand out, that defeats the assignment.”

“This stopped being an assignment when the spell chucked us across the Atlantic,” Sirius said.

“It is still being graded,” Lily said automatically.

James stared at her. “Evans.”

“What?”

“We are in nineteen-fifties Chicago.”

“And I am not failing a project because time travel decided to be dramatic.”

There was a moment where everyone had to accept that, unfortunately, Lily Evans was completely serious.

“Fine,” Sirius said. “Blending in. Peter. Barty. What do we need?”

Peter straightened, delighted and terrified by suddenly being useful. “Right. Clothes first. Men generally suits, slacks, button-up shirts, cardigans, jackets. Hats if we can manage it, but not everyone needs one. Shoes polished. Hair neat.”

“Women,” Barty said, picking up the thread eagerly, “skirts, dresses, blouses, cardigans, gloves if going proper, stockings, sensible heels or flats. Hair styled. More effort expected, because the decade was a nightmare.”

Lily raised a brow. “Thank you for that accurate summary.”

“It was,” Barty said. “Sexism with lipstick.”

Mary snorted. “That should be on a textbook.”

“The girls will get judged more,” Peter said, looking apologetic. “Clothes, posture, voices, behaviour.”

“Brilliant,” Marlene said. “We went back in time and found extra homework.”

Alice sighed. “And the boys?”

“Also judged,” Peter said. “But differently.”

Barty’s gaze moved across the group with sudden, assessing precision. “Not equally, either.”

That sobered the alley.

Only a little.

Not enough to make it grim, but enough to make everyone pay attention.

Barty pointed first at James. “You can’t dress exactly like Potter.”

James looked down at himself. “I’m wearing robes.”

“I mean like an average white American bloke, you prat. You’re Mexican. Nineteen-fifties America means you’ll be read differently. Clothes still need to be sharp, but we need to think about where you’d plausibly fit without drawing attention.”

James blinked, then nodded slowly. “Right.”

Lily’s expression tightened with concern, but James only gave a small shrug and looked to Peter.

Peter nodded quickly. “Workwear might be safer for some situations. Clean shirt, jacket, trousers. Not too flashy. Nothing that suggests you’re trying to enter places where people will stare too hard.”

“Lovely decade,” James muttered.

Barty turned to Mary, Evan, Pandora, and Dorcas.

“You lot,” he said, then hesitated.

Dorcas lifted her chin. “Go on.”

“Black in nineteen-fifties Chicago,” Barty said carefully, “means you also cannot just wander wherever wearing whatever and expect the same treatment as them.”

Mary gave him a dry look. “Imagine my shock.”

Evan said, “We know.”

Pandora’s smile had gone softer, but not frightened. “We dress beautifully and choose carefully.”

“Exactly,” Peter said, nodding with relief. “Chicago has Black communities, Black businesses, music, churches, clubs, neighbourhoods. But the rules are different depending where we go.”

Dorcas crossed her arms. “So we don’t swan into the wrong place looking like clueless Hogwarts idiots.”

“Preferably not,” Remus said.

Barty gestured at Peter. “This is why we need him.”

Peter looked startled.

Barty looked equally startled by his own sincerity, then recovered by pointing at Sirius and Regulus. “And you two.”

Sirius spread his arms. “What about us?”

“You’re pale as ghosts and look like old money had a nervous breakdown.”

Regulus said, “I beg your pardon.”

“No, he’s right,” Marlene said. “You do.”

“Especially him,” James said, pointing at Sirius. “He looks like he inherited three haunted houses and a curse.”

Sirius looked pleased. “Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I’m taking it as one.”

Peter looked between the brothers. “You can probably pass as fancy English boarding school boys. Wealthy family. Visiting. It explains the accents.”

Regulus’s head snapped up. “I’m keeping my accent.”

“No one said you weren’t,” Remus said.

“I’m not speaking like an American.”

Sirius grinned. “Here we go.”

“They sound like someone put marbles in a trumpet.”

James made a strangled noise.

Mary pressed a hand over her mouth.

Barty whispered, “Oh, he’s going to get us shot.”

Regulus continued, gathering momentum. “Loud Yankee bastards. Everything has to be bigger, louder, shinier, greasier—”

“We are currently in an alley,” Lily hissed. “Please lower your imperial disgust.”

“I am not saying ‘gee whiz.’”

“No one asked you to say gee whiz,” Alice said.

“I refuse pre-emptively.”

Peter raised one finger. “Technically, you’d probably need some American slang if you interact with people.”

“No.”

Barty’s smile turned wicked. “Say swell.”

Regulus stared at him.

Barty leaned closer. “Come on. Say it.”

“I will turn your shoes into eels.”

“Say nifty.”

“I will turn your tongue into a shoelace.”

“Say daddy-o.”

Sirius burst out laughing.

Regulus whipped around. “Do not encourage him.”

Sirius, delighted beyond reason, leaned against the wall and tried not to collapse. “No, no, sorry, this is educational. Go on, Barty.”

Regulus pointed at him. “You can enjoy this because you are also British.”

“I’m adaptable.”

“You are wearing a cloak in Chicago.”

“I’m emotionally adaptable.”

Dorcas rolled her eyes. “Can we transfigure the clothes before someone sees a gang of wizard children arguing about accents behind bins?”

“That’s the smartest thing anyone’s said,” Frank murmured.

Wands came out carefully, concealed by bodies and shadows. They worked in quiet, quick bursts, one at a time, layering small transfigurations rather than great flashy changes.

The robes vanished first.

James ended up in dark trousers, a crisp shirt, a worn jacket, and shoes that looked polished but practical. His hair refused all attempts at obedience and instead became a slightly neater disaster.

Lily wore a green dress with a fitted waist and a full skirt, a cardigan over it, her red hair pinned back in soft waves. She inspected the hem with intense suspicion.

“This skirt is attempting to make decisions for me,” she said.

Mary’s dress was a deep, clean cut with a little jacket, gloves tucked into one hand, and her hair styled neatly away from her face. She looked at herself, then at the others. “I look like I know where I’m going.”

“You do,” Alice said admiringly.

“I absolutely do not.”

Marlene’s outfit was more practical: blouse, trousers disguised under a long coat until Peter urgently whispered that trousers on women would be noticed depending on where they went, and she grudgingly allowed Pandora to shift it into a skirt with enough movement that she could still kick someone.

“If I can’t run in it,” Marlene said, “history can fight me.”

Alice’s dress was soft blue, neat and pretty, with her hair curled under. Frank looked at her for a second too long, then promptly became fascinated by his own shoes.

Fabian and Gideon had matching trouble with their transfigurations because they kept trying to make each other look worse. Fabian gave Gideon a hat too small for his head. Gideon retaliated by making Fabian’s tie violently crooked. Lily fixed both with one wand flick and a glare.

Remus chose simple trousers, shirt, cardigan, and coat, blending so well at once that Sirius accused him of having “naturally historical bones.”

Peter, guided by his own careful knowledge, transfigured himself into a well-fitting suit that suited his softer build rather than hiding it badly. His trousers sat properly, his jacket had enough shape, and his shoes looked respectable. He touched the lapels with shy pride.

Barty stared at him. “That’s actually excellent.”

Peter went pink. “Thanks.”

Barty changed into a sharp suit with a dark tie and slicked-back hair, then stood there looking like someone who should not be trusted near a bank, a card table, or a state witness.

Evan looked at him once and said, “No.”

“What?”

“You look like the exact reason policemen exist.”

Barty looked offended. “Thank you.”

“That was not praise.”

“I’m accepting it anyway.”

Evan dressed cleanly, sharply, with a jacket that sat perfectly over his shoulders and a quiet confidence that made him look as though he had stepped out of the decade, judged it, and decided he could manage. Dorcas looked him over and nodded once.

“Annoying,” she said.

“What is?”

“You look good.”

“I usually do.”

“More annoying.”

Dorcas chose a dress and jacket that balanced elegance with readiness, her hair styled beautifully, her expression making it clear that anyone who mistook the clothing for softness would learn otherwise.

Pandora, of course, took the longest.

Not because she struggled.

Because she was enjoying herself.

Her dress had a full skirt and a delicate collar, her curls shaped into something soft and doll-like, her gloves perfectly matched. She looked luminous and faintly eerie, like a girl in an old photograph who knew exactly when the camera would break.

Then she turned to Regulus.

Regulus took one step back.

“No.”

Pandora took one step forward.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“You’ll match me.”

“I have survived many horrors. I will not survive matching you.”

“You will look adorable.”

“I do not wish to look adorable.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” Sirius said.

Regulus turned on him. “Betrayal.”

Sirius smiled. “Brotherly honesty.”

Pandora had already lifted her wand.

Regulus narrowed his eyes. “Pandora.”

“Regulus.”

“No.”

“Just for blending in.”

“No.”

“For fun.”

“Absolutely no.”

“For me.”

Regulus paused.

Everyone watched him lose.

He sighed with such theatrical despair that James whispered, “He’s dying beautifully.”

Pandora beamed and set to work.

The transformation was careful and strangely effortless because Regulus, inconveniently for his pride, required very little alteration. His features were already fine-boned and androgynous, his frame slim, his posture elegant when he remembered not to slouch like a bored prince. Pandora lengthened his curls into a dark, glossy bob that curled sweetly under his chin. She softened the shape around his face, adjusted his clothing into a fitted dress with a full skirt, a tiny cardigan, neat shoes, and little gloves that made him stare at his hands as though they had committed treason.

Sirius clapped both hands over his mouth.

Regulus slowly looked up.

“Laugh,” he said, “and I will end your bloodline.”

Sirius made a strangled sound.

James leaned around him, eyes wide. “Oh my god.”

Regulus looked at him.

James corrected himself instantly. “You look very historically convincing.”

“That is worse.”

Mary tilted her head. “Actually, he does.”

“He really does,” Alice agreed.

Lily pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a smile. “Pandora, that is very good transfiguration.”

“Thank you,” Pandora said brightly.

Dorcas folded her arms, studying Regulus. “Walk less like you’re about to insult a duke.”

“I might insult a duke.”

“You’re in Chicago.”

“Then I shall insult Chicago.”

Barty circled him once, delighted. “Say something.”

“No.”

“In the voice.”

“No.”

Pandora clasped her hands beneath her chin. “Please?”

Regulus shut his eyes for one long moment.

Then he opened them and said, in a voice so light, sweet, and naturally feminine that everyone froze, “You are all becoming rapidly more tiresome by the second.”

Sirius bent double.

James made a noise like a kettle giving up.

Frank actually dropped his hat.

Peter whispered, “That was alarmingly good.”

Regulus lifted his chin, curls bouncing. “I contain multitudes.”

“Do it with an American accent,” Barty demanded.

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“You can’t look like that and sound like you’re about to inherit half of Wiltshire.”

“I can and I shall.”

Lily tried to regain control of her face. “Regulus, if we need to blend in—”

“I will do the girl voice,” Regulus said firmly. “I will not do the American accent. You may pick one.”

“That is not how teamwork works,” Mary said.

“That is exactly how my teamwork works.”

Sirius wiped at his eyes. “Honestly, let him keep it. If anyone asks, he’s my terrifying little sister from a fancy English boarding school.”

Regulus pointed one gloved finger at him. “You are on thin ice.”

“You are wearing gloves with buttons.”

“I will bury you in them.”

Remus, who had been watching with the expression of someone silently filing away every detail for later mockery, cleared his throat. “Actually, Peter’s suggestion works. Sirius and Regulus are close enough in appearance that the story is simple. Wealthy English siblings, travelling. It explains the accents.”

“Almost identical siblings,” James said, squinting. “Except one of you looks like a runaway aristocrat and the other looks like he’s about to poison a milkshake.”

Regulus blinked slowly. “Which one am I?”

James opened his mouth, hesitated, and wisely closed it.

“Good choice,” Evan said.

Barty leaned toward Peter and whispered, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I would’ve said milkshake poisoner.”

Peter nodded solemnly. “Definitely.”

Regulus threw a buttoned glove at him.

Peter caught it, startled.

Barty looked impressed. “Good reflex.”

Peter, still holding the glove, looked pleased all over again.

Lily breathed in, breathed out, and assumed the expression she wore when deciding whether to organise people or murder them.

“Right,” she said. “We have clothes. We have a rough cover story. We need somewhere safe to stay.”

“And money,” Frank said.

“We’ve got galleons,” Fabian said.

Marlene gave him a look. “Yes, because walking into a nineteen-fifties American shop with goblin gold is famously subtle.”

“We transfigure it later,” Remus said. “When we’re alone.”

“Into American money,” Peter added. “Proper bills. Coins. Nothing too new. Nothing too strange.”

“Counterfeiting,” Barty said happily. “Educational.”

“Survival,” Lily corrected.

“Educational survival counterfeiting.”

“Barty.”

“Fine.”

James looked down the alley again. “So where do we go?”

Peter and Barty both moved toward the alley mouth and peered out carefully.

The others followed in a loose cluster, trying very hard not to look like sixteen magical teenagers from 1970s Britain pretending badly to be normal in 1950s Chicago.

It was immediately clear that the street was alive.

Cars rolled past in shining streams, their engines low and throaty. Men tipped hats. Women carried parcels. A newspaper boy called out headlines none of them properly caught. A diner sign buzzed faintly in the distance. The city seemed enormous, bright-edged, and loud in a way that made Regulus’s expression deepen into personal hatred.

“Absolutely obnoxious,” he muttered.

Sirius leaned toward him. “The buildings?”

“The continent.”

“You’re being rude to architecture now?”

“It started it.”

Mary nudged Lily. “He’s going to be like this the whole week, isn’t he?”

Lily sighed. “Yes.”

Regulus’s head turned. “I heard that.”

“You were meant to,” Mary said sweetly.

Dorcas scanned the pavement. “We need to walk like we belong.”

“Can everyone do that?” Evan asked.

Everyone looked at James.

James looked offended. “Why is everyone looking at me?”

“Because you walk like you’re being announced,” Remus said.

“I have natural presence.”

“You have natural volume,” Lily corrected.

“Cruel.”

“Accurate.”

Fabian adjusted his hat. “I can belong anywhere.”

Gideon gave him a slow once-over. “You look like you’re about to sell watches from inside your coat.”

Fabian opened his coat slightly. “Want one?”

Gideon laughed.

Lily pointed at both of them. “No fake watch business.”

“We haven’t even got watches,” Fabian protested.

“That makes it worse.”

Alice, holding Frank’s arm, looked up and down the street. “Do we know what part of Chicago we’re in?”

Peter squinted at the storefronts. “Not yet. We need signs, maybe a street name. We should avoid drawing attention until we know more.”

Barty nodded. “Move in smaller clumps, but close enough we don’t lose anyone.”

“Absolutely not,” Sirius said at once. “No splitting.”

“No one is splitting,” Remus agreed. “Just not walking in a giant suspicious blob.”

Marlene looked back at the group. “We are a giant suspicious blob.”

“Then we become several smaller suspicious blobs,” Dorcas said.

“Progress,” Evan said.

They stepped out of the alley.

The city swallowed them at once.

For all their planning, the first few seconds were mostly panic disguised as posture. James nearly walked the wrong way into a man carrying a stack of papers and had to pivot sharply into Sirius, who grabbed him by the back of his jacket and hissed, “Casual, Prongs.”

“I am casual.”

“You just bowed at a lamppost.”

“I thought it was a person.”

“It’s taller than Peter.”

“Lots of people are taller than Peter.”

Peter, walking just ahead with Barty, glanced back. “I heard that.”

“Good,” Sirius said. “Stay alert.”

Regulus moved beside Pandora, face serene, hands folded neatly, looking like a perfectly mannered young lady if one ignored the venom radiating off him in waves.

Pandora was thrilled.

“You’re doing so well,” she whispered.

“I’m going to bite you.”

“Not in public.”

Regulus gave her a scandalised look that only made her smile wider.

Dorcas walked on Pandora’s other side, effortlessly cool, eyes always moving. Evan stayed near them, sharp and silent, while Mary walked with Lily and Marlene, the three of them watching the street in different ways: Lily analytical, Mary wary, Marlene ready to start a fight with history if required.

Frank and Alice stayed close behind, Frank trying to look calm and Alice occasionally whispering observations under her breath.

Fabian and Gideon kept drifting too close to shop windows, fascinated by everything.

“Stop staring,” Remus murmured.

Fabian tore his eyes from a display of radios. “But look at them.”

“We can look later.”

“What if later has worse radios?”

Gideon nodded. “Strong point.”

Lily shot them both a glare.

They stopped looking.

Mostly.

Peter and Barty were in front, whispering at furious speed.

“That sign says West—”

“No, look at the streetcar route—”

“That diner looks safe-ish.”

“Too public.”

“We need somewhere to pause.”

“Hotel?”

“No money yet.”

“Boarding house?”

“Maybe.”

“Church?”

“Not with this lot.”

“Fair.”

“Library?”

Barty paused.

Peter paused.

They looked at each other again.

Remus narrowed his eyes. “Why did they stop?”

“Because they’re about to bond harder,” Sirius said.

Peter turned back, face bright. “A library could help.”

Barty nodded rapidly. “Maps, newspapers, local directories, maybe payphones nearby.”

James leaned in. “We are not calling anyone.”

“I know that,” Barty said. “But phones mean people, and people mean information.”

“Terrifying logic,” Mary said.

Peter gestured discreetly toward a sign ahead. “There’s one that way. Public building. We could go in, warm up, find maps, work out where we are, and then figure out somewhere to stay.”

“That,” Lily said, “is actually sensible.”

Peter smiled.

Barty clapped him on the shoulder. “History boy saves the day.”

Peter looked so pleased that even Sirius did not make a joke.

They turned down another street, moving with more confidence now. Not perfect confidence. Not real confidence. But the appearance of it, which was apparently half of surviving anywhere.

The city kept unfolding around them.

Everything seemed too loud to Regulus.

The cars.

The advertisements.

The accents.

The shoes on pavement.

The shop bells.

The casual way strangers spoke as if they had been personally invited into the air.

“Do Americans not know about indoor voices?” Regulus muttered.

Sirius glanced at him. “We are outdoors.”

“They should practise.”

“You’re going to start an international incident with a greengrocer.”

“Good. Let the timeline fear me.”

James dropped back beside them, grinning. “You know, for someone dressed like that, you are deeply unpleasant.”

Regulus smiled sweetly in his girl voice. “Thank you ever so much, James.”

James stopped walking for half a second. “That is so unsettling.”

Sirius looked delighted. “Do it again.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“I’m your brother.”

“That is why I won’t.”

James leaned toward Sirius. “He’s wasted on Slytherin. He could be weaponised.”

“He already is,” Sirius said fondly. “Just usually at breakfast.”

Regulus’s expression twitched, not quite a smile, but close enough that Sirius looked pleased with himself.

There was no tension between them, not here. Not in this strange wrong city with the wrong decade pressing in on every side. They moved near each other easily, their shared features and matching aristocratic angles making Peter’s cover story more plausible by the second. Sirius walked like the world was a stage. Regulus walked like the stage belonged to him and everyone else had failed the audition.

Together, unfortunately, they made sense.

When they reached the library, they did not go in all at once. Lily insisted on order. Barty insisted on not looking like a school trip. Remus insisted on no one touching anything suspicious. Marlene insisted that if anyone asked, Fabian and Gideon were not with her.

Fabian looked wounded. “What if we need a responsible adult?”

Marlene stared at him.

Gideon patted Fabian’s shoulder. “We are doomed, brother.”

Inside, the library smelled of paper, polish, dust, and warm silence.

For the first time since landing, they all relaxed by one inch.

Only one.

But it helped.

Peter moved immediately toward newspapers with Barty beside him. Lily and Remus went for maps. Mary, Dorcas, and Evan scanned the people inside and the layout of the room. James tried to follow Lily, was silently redirected by her glare toward Remus, then pretended that had been his plan.

Alice and Frank found a table. Sirius and Regulus followed, with Pandora still admiring her own handiwork every time Regulus’s curls bounced.

“You are far too happy,” Regulus told her quietly as they sat.

Pandora folded her gloved hands. “You look like a little 1950s dream.”

“I look like a cautionary tale.”

“A pretty one.”

“I’m telling Evan you’re bullying me.”

Evan, without looking up from the room he was watching, said, “I support her.”

Regulus gasped softly in the girl voice.

Sirius slapped a hand over his mouth again.

Frank leaned across the table, whispering, “Please don’t make me laugh in a library.”

“Then don’t be weak,” Regulus said.

Alice hid her smile behind her hand.

Marlene dropped into a chair backwards, earned a scandalised look from an elderly woman nearby, and immediately turned the chair properly.

“Sexism,” she whispered.

Mary sat beside her. “Posture, darling.”

Marlene sat up painfully straight and smiled with all her teeth. “Like this?”

“You look like you’re about to stab a husband.”

“Good.”

At the newspaper rack, Peter and Barty had gone terrifyingly focused.

They moved from paper to paper, checking dates, headlines, addresses, local references. Peter’s finger traced the print. Barty muttered under his breath. Their shoulders nearly touched.

“June,” Peter whispered.

“Definitely fifties.”

“Mid-decade?”

“Looks it.”

“Twenty years,” Peter said, glancing back at the others. “Give or take, exactly what it feels like.”

Barty exhaled through his nose. “The spell overshot.”

“No, the spell took the idea of a few years and got ambitious.”

“That’s a better way to put it.”

They gathered what they could without looking suspicious and returned to the table in pairs, Lily arriving with a folded map and Remus with a local directory.

“We need money,” James whispered.

“Not here,” Lily said. “We are not transfiguring gold into cash in a public library.”

“Wasn’t planning to.”

“You looked like you were planning to.”

“I have many faces.”

“You have one face. It always looks like planning.”

Sirius leaned in. “He can’t help it. His face was built for schemes.”

“Your face was built for wanted posters,” Regulus said.

Sirius placed a hand over his heart. “From my own sister.”

Regulus smiled primly. “Devastating, isn’t it?”

Peter spread the map as much as he could without taking up the entire table. “We need to find somewhere cheap and not too official. A hotel might ask too many questions.”

“Boarding house,” Barty said. “Cash. Less paperwork. Still risky, but better.”

“With sixteen of us?” Remus asked.

“That’s the problem,” Peter said.

“Several rooms,” Fabian whispered. “Easy.”

Lily looked at him. “With what money?”

Fabian patted his pocket, remembered he had wizarding coins, and said nothing.

Mary glanced around the table. “We can’t exactly say we’re sixteen students from Scotland on a field trip who lost the teachers.”

James perked up. “Why not?”

Every girl at the table looked at him.

James nodded once. “Right. Bad.”

Alice tapped the table lightly. “What do we say, then?”

“Family groups,” Peter said. “Maybe travelling together.”

Sirius threw an arm around Regulus’s chair. “Fancy English siblings.”

Regulus looked at his arm.

Sirius slowly removed it.

“Fancy English siblings,” Regulus agreed.

Pandora raised a finger. “And I’m matching with her.”

Regulus closed his eyes. “Do not call me her with that much joy.”

“It helps the cover.”

“It helps your hobby.”

“My hobby is artistry.”

“Your hobby is crimes against my wardrobe.”

Evan leaned back. “They can be both.”

Dorcas nodded. “Multidisciplinary.”

Frank, looking over the map upside down, asked, “Could some of us be cousins?”

“Too many accents,” Peter said.

“We can charm the language,” Lily said. “Accent work, not just words.”

Regulus immediately said, “No.”

Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. “We know.”

“I want it recorded.”

“We’re in a library, not court.”

“I’ll make a court.”

Barty pointed at him. “That sounded very American.”

Regulus looked horrified.

Sirius whispered, “Got him.”

Regulus kicked him under the table.

Sirius yelped.

The elderly woman glared again.

Everyone became very interested in the map.

After that, they forced themselves into something resembling productivity.

The plan, if it could be called a plan, was simple because it had no choice but to be. They would leave the library calmly. They would find somewhere private enough to transfigure their money. They would use small amounts at first. They would scout for a boarding house or cheap rooms. They would stay together without looking like a parade. They would let Peter and Barty guide the historical details, Lily and Remus handle the practical magical decisions, and everyone else attempt not to ruin the timeline by being themselves too loudly.

This last instruction was aimed mainly at James, Sirius, Barty, Fabian, Gideon, Marlene, and Regulus.

Which was nearly half the group.

“We are doomed,” Remus murmured.

“Not doomed,” James whispered. “Challenged.”

“Doomed with vocabulary.”

Lily folded the map carefully. “We need to go.”

Mary looked toward the doors. “Everyone remember how to walk normally?”

“No,” Fabian said.

Gideon shook his head. “Never learned.”

Alice stood, smoothing her skirt. “Just follow Lily.”

Lily looked startled. “Why me?”

“Because you look like you know what taxes are.”

James stared at Alice with admiration. “That is the most accurate thing anyone has ever said.”

Lily’s mouth twitched despite herself. “Fine. Follow me, but not like ducklings.”

They left the library in staggered clusters.

Outside, the city had shifted slightly with the afternoon. More people. More traffic. More noise. The sky hung pale and broad between buildings, and the air had that strange city thickness, full of smoke, metal, perfume, and rain waiting to happen.

Regulus stepped onto the pavement, took one breath, and said, “Still hate it.”

Sirius smiled. “You’re consistent.”

“It’s one of my finer qualities.”

“You have those?”

Regulus glanced at him. “I’m adorable, apparently.”

Sirius choked.

Pandora, walking ahead, turned back with pure delight. “You said it.”

“I said apparently.”

“It counts.”

“It does not.”

“It absolutely does,” Dorcas said.

Evan nodded. “Legal ruling.”

“There is no legal ruling,” Regulus snapped.

Barty leaned toward Peter. “We could make one.”

Peter whispered back, “In this decade? Probably not in his favour.”

Barty considered. “Fair.”

They moved through the street, eyes open. Peter read signs as they passed. Barty supplied context at a speed that made James accuse him of swallowing a textbook. Peter corrected him twice. Barty looked thrilled both times.

“Did you just enjoy being corrected?” Marlene asked.

“By someone correct, yes,” Barty said.

Peter looked like Christmas had arrived early and brought indexed footnotes.

They found an even narrower side street, quieter than the first, with stacked crates near a closed delivery entrance. It smelled of damp wood and old flour. Not ideal, but hidden enough for a few careful spells.

Lily took charge of the money.

“Small denominations,” she said. “Not too perfect. No stacks of fresh bills. Nothing that looks suspicious.”

“Counterfeiting with standards,” Barty said.

“Survival,” Lily said again.

Barty grinned. “You say tomato.”

“I do not.”

Galleons, sickles, and knuts became coins and folded notes beneath careful wandwork. Peter inspected them with anxious seriousness, checking designs, dates, and wear.

“That one’s too crisp,” he said.

Lily aged it slightly.

“That coin looks wrong.”

Remus corrected the edge.

“That bill—”

Barty plucked it up. “Fake-looking.”

“It is fake,” James said.

“Spiritually fake. Physically fake-looking.”

“Helpful.”

Regulus leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his cardigan, watching with detached irritation.

Marlene glanced at him. “You could help.”

“I am helping.”

“How?”

“I’m improving the view.”

Sirius nodded solemnly. “He is dressed for it.”

Regulus pointed at him. “Do not.”

“You are.”

“I will undo your shoelaces with my mind.”

“You can’t.”

“I’ll learn.”

Dorcas looked at Pandora. “Can we keep him like this the whole week?”

“Yes,” Pandora said.

“No,” Regulus said.

Mary smiled. “We’ll put it to a vote.”

“I reject democracy.”

James gasped. “In America?”

Regulus’s expression turned icy. “Especially in America.”

They almost lost Sirius again.

Once the money was sorted, they returned to the main street with a little more confidence. Not much. Enough to be dangerous.

Finding somewhere to stay became the next challenge.

They passed one hotel that looked too expensive, one that looked too official, and one that made Frank quietly say, “Absolutely not,” with such unexpected firmness that no one questioned him.

Peter and Barty led them toward streets where the buildings grew smaller and less polished. The city changed block by block, not dramatically, but enough for them to feel it. Quieter doors. Narrower windows. Laundry lines. Corner shops. Men lingering outside with cigarettes. Women walking in pairs. Children darting past with sharp little glances.

The group tightened without meaning to.

Mary noticed first. “Don’t huddle.”

“We are not huddling,” James whispered.

“We are absolutely huddling.”

Lily adjusted her gloves. “Walk.”

They walked.

Regulus, to everyone’s surprise, did it best.

Not because he looked American.

He did not.

He looked aggressively, stubbornly, almost artistically British.

But he wore the dress like armour and the curls like a threat. He did not glance around too much. He did not gape at cars or signs. He did not flinch when people passed too close. His little gloved hands remained neat. His expression said he had never been lost in his life and would be insulted by the suggestion.

Pandora leaned toward him. “You’re very good at this.”

“I was raised by people who thought being seen confused was a moral failure.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s useful.”

Sirius, beside them, nodded. “Unfortunately true.”

Regulus glanced at him. “You’re slouching.”

Sirius straightened at once.

James laughed under his breath. “He trained you.”

“He bites,” Sirius said.

“I do,” Regulus agreed pleasantly.

They found the boarding house because Alice spotted the sign.

It was modest, narrow, and tucked between a grocer and a tailor, with lace curtains in the front windows and a painted notice advertising rooms. Nothing grand. Nothing too official. Nothing too impossible.

Everyone stopped across the street.

“No,” Lily said immediately.

James blinked. “No?”

“We cannot all go in.”

“Right.”

“Who talks?” Frank asked.

Silence.

Everyone looked at Lily.

Lily looked furious that they were correct.

“I can do it,” she said.

Mary stepped beside her. “I’ll come.”

Alice nodded. “Me too.”

Peter raised a hand slightly. “I can help if there are questions about money or local details.”

Barty looked personally offended at not being included.

Dorcas pointed at him. “You look like you’re about to ask if the owner pays protection.”

Barty shut his mouth.

Evan said, “She’s right.”

Barty adjusted his tie. “This suit is being misunderstood.”

“No,” Peter said gently. “It’s being understood perfectly.”

Barty stared at him, then smiled. “That was good.”

Peter smiled back.

Marlene whispered to Mary, “This is the strangest romance of facts I’ve ever seen.”

Mary whispered back, “Let them have it. We need historians.”

Regulus touched his bobbed curls with a sigh. “I’m going.”

Pandora lit up.

“No,” Lily said.

Regulus lifted his brows. “You need the English siblings story. Sirius can come too.”

Sirius immediately grinned. “Oh, absolutely.”

Lily looked at Remus.

Remus looked at Sirius and Regulus, then at the boarding house, then back again.

“They are plausible,” he admitted.

“Thank you,” Sirius said.

“I didn’t say trustworthy.”

“Still counts.”

So the chosen group crossed the street: Lily, Mary, Alice, Peter, Sirius, and Regulus.

The others waited in careful formation near a shop window, trying to look like people who had not recently fallen through time.

Inside the boarding house, the air smelled of furniture polish, boiled tea, and old carpet. A woman at the front desk looked up over her spectacles.

Her eyes moved over Lily, Mary, Alice, Peter, Sirius, and Regulus.

Especially Sirius and Regulus.

“Afternoon,” she said.

Lily smiled with terrifying composure. “Good afternoon.”

Sirius inclined his head like a princeling.

Regulus did the same, but smaller, sweeter, and somehow more judgmental.

Peter stood neatly, hands folded, doing his best impression of a harmless young man who knew what money looked like.

The woman looked at Regulus. “You folks from England?”

Regulus smiled.

Sirius tensed.

Lily tensed.

Peter stopped breathing.

In his light, perfectly feminine voice, Regulus said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Not American.

Not even slightly.

But polite enough that the woman blinked.

Sirius’s eyes flicked to him, glittering with barely contained laughter.

The woman hummed. “Long way from home.”

“Rather,” Regulus said.

Lily smoothly stepped in before he could say anything about loud yankee bastards. “We’re travelling with a group. We need rooms for the week, if you have anything available.”

The woman studied them again. “How many?”

Lily named the number.

The woman’s brows rose so high they nearly achieved flight.

Peter, blessed Peter, quietly added, “We can pay cash.”

The brows lowered.

Business was business, even in the wrong century.

There were questions.

Too many questions.

Names, length of stay, whether they were family, whether they had luggage, why such a large party, why the two English ones looked like they belonged in a newspaper illustration about inheritance disputes.

Lily handled most of it.

Mary helped.

Alice softened the edges.

Peter answered the money questions.

Sirius smiled charmingly and lied with the confidence of someone who had been born into a family where lying politely was practically a language.

Regulus stood there looking pretty, bored, and faintly unwell at being in America, which somehow supported the idea that he was a delicate English girl travelling abroad.

When the woman finally looked at him and asked, “And you, sweetheart? You all right?”

Regulus’s eye twitched.

Sirius coughed violently into his hand.

Regulus smiled like a poisoned cake. “Perfectly, thank you.”

The woman looked charmed.

Sirius had to turn away.

Outside, James saw him through the window and immediately narrowed his eyes. “He’s laughing.”

Remus glanced over. “Who?”

“Sirius. He’s doing the shoulder thing.”

Marlene squinted. “Regulus must have spoken.”

Pandora clasped her hands happily. “I wish I could hear.”

Dorcas said, “He’s going to come out and pretend he hated every second.”

“He did hate every second,” Evan said.

“Yes, but he’s going to pretend he wasn’t funny.”

“He is funny.”

“He knows.”

Barty rocked on his heels. “How long does getting rooms take in the fifties?”

Frank glanced at him. “Do you know?”

“No. I know crime, cars, suits, and slang. Boarding house admin was not central to my mobster plans.”

“That feels like poor planning.”

“I was seven.”

At last, the door opened.

Lily came out first, looking victorious in the very restrained way of someone who intended to be smug later.

Mary and Alice followed, both visibly relieved.

Peter came out clutching folded notes and looking proud.

Then Sirius stumbled out, one hand pressed over his mouth.

Regulus followed with icy dignity.

James immediately said, “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Regulus said.

Sirius made a wheezing sound.

“What happened?” Marlene demanded.

Mary grinned. “The owner called him sweetheart.”

The street nearly ended them.

James folded in half.

Fabian made a strangled honking noise.

Gideon grabbed him before he could fall into the road.

Barty slapped a hand against the wall.

Peter tried not to laugh and failed in small squeaks.

Pandora looked like all her dreams had come true. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Regulus turned slowly toward her.

“Run,” Evan advised.

Pandora did not run. She simply beamed.

Regulus lifted one gloved hand and said, sweet as sugar, “I will remember this.”

“That sounded like a threat in a music box,” Frank said.

Alice laughed so hard she had to turn into his shoulder.

Lily, still smiling despite her best efforts, lifted the keys. “We have rooms.”

That sobered them enough to move, though not enough to stop the occasional snicker.

Inside, the boarding house owner gave the full group a long, assessing look. There was no world in which they seemed normal, but apparently the cash and Lily’s composure worked miracles. They were led upstairs to a set of rooms close enough together to keep everyone contained.

The moment the final door shut behind them, the masks dropped.

James threw himself onto the nearest bed and bounced once. “We are alive.”

Lily pointed at him. “Shoes off the bed.”

James froze mid-bounce, then slowly removed his shoes.

Sirius collapsed into a chair, finally laughing properly. “Sweetheart.”

Regulus stood in the middle of the room, curls perfect, gloves pristine, expression deadly. “I hope you choke.”

“Sweetheart,” Sirius repeated, helpless.

Regulus turned to Peter. “You too?”

Peter held up both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it.”

“I think lots of things.”

Pandora gasped. “That’s my line.”

Barty dropped onto the floor beside Peter, tugging at his tie. “Right. We have shelter. We have clothes. We have money. We have a cover story.”

“We do?” Remus asked.

“Sort of,” Lily said. “It’s fragile, but it exists.”

Mary sat on the edge of a bed, kicking off her shoes with a sigh. “We are apparently a travelling group with English siblings, cousins, and friends.”

“Vague,” Dorcas said.

“Vague is flexible,” Lily replied.

Marlene flopped into a chair. “I hate this skirt.”

“You’ve said that six times,” Alice said.

“And I’ve meant it more each time.”

Frank looked around the room. “We still need to adapt for a week.”

No one answered immediately.

The week stretched ahead of them, enormous and strange.

A week in a city none of them knew.

A week in the wrong country, wrong decade, wrong clothes, wrong rules.

A week of pretending to belong.

Then James slowly sat up, hair even worse from the bed.

“So,” he said, “what’s first? Learning slang? Finding food? Figuring out how not to offend every American we meet?”

Regulus said, “Impossible.”

Sirius grinned. “For you, maybe.”

“For anyone with standards.”

Barty snapped his fingers. “Slang first. Very important.”

Peter nodded immediately. “We need at least basic phrases.”

“No,” Regulus said.

“Yes,” Barty said.

“No.”

“Say cool.”

“That word already exists.”

“Say neat.”

“No.”

“Say swell.”

“I will not.”

“Say ‘that’s real gone.’”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

Peter, unable to help himself, said, “It can mean excellent, exciting, impressive—”

Regulus stared at him.

Peter sank slightly. “Sorry.”

Barty looked delighted. “No, continue.”

Lily leaned back against the wall, watching them all with tired disbelief. “We are going to fail this assignment because of slang.”

“No,” Remus said. “We’re going to fail because someone lets Fabian near a payphone.”

Fabian looked up. “What’s a payphone?”

Gideon looked interested. “Can we see one?”

“No,” everyone said.

Mary laughed, soft and bright, and the sound loosened something in the room.

They were absurd.

They were lost.

They were overdressed, underprepared, twenty years out of place, and trapped in 1950s Chicago by a spell that had apparently taken a simple school assignment and flung it into historical theatre.

But they were together.

And for the moment, no one had been arrested, exposed, separated, or forced to hear Regulus say “gee whiz.”

Which, by all reasonable standards, counted as a promising start.

Regulus sat delicately in the chair beside Sirius, arranging his full skirt with the air of someone enduring a royal punishment.

Sirius leaned over. “You know, you really do make a convincing girl.”

Regulus did not look at him. “You make a convincing idiot.”

Sirius smiled. “Fancy English siblings?”

Regulus sighed.

Then, after a moment, he tilted his head and said in that sweet, pretty voice, “Unfortunately.”

Sirius lost it again.

James joined him.

Pandora clapped.

Barty shouted, “That was swell!”

Regulus stood at once. “I’m leaving.”

“No, sweetheart,” Mary said, grinning. “We need to scout out the city.”

Regulus stopped.

The room went silent.

He turned slowly, curls bouncing against his jaw.

Mary looked entirely unrepentant.

Regulus pointed at her, then at Pandora, then at Sirius, then at Barty, then somehow at the entire room.

“I am giving all of you one warning,” he said, voice light and dangerous and painfully elegant. “One.”

Marlene leaned toward Dorcas. “He’s funnier like this.”

Dorcas nodded. “Much funnier.”

Evan, arms folded by the window, glanced at the street below.

“Before anyone is murdered by sweetheart,” he said, “we should decide what we’re doing next.”

Lily pushed away from the wall and unfolded the map again.

“Food,” she said. “Then we scout nearby streets. Quietly. Carefully. We learn the area. We don’t draw attention.”

“Speak for yourself,” James said. “I am blending beautifully.”

“You bowed at a lamppost,” Remus reminded him.

“It had presence.”

“It had rust.”

Barty leaned over the map, Peter immediately beside him.

“Diner nearby,” Barty said.

“Maybe too public,” Peter replied.

“But useful for listening.”

“True.”

“Food.”

“Also true.”

“Milkshakes.”

Peter paused. “Historically appropriate.”

Barty looked at him with deep approval. “You understand me.”

Peter smiled. “I understand milkshakes.”

Regulus, from beside the chair, said coldly, “If anyone makes one joke about me poisoning a milkshake, I will.”

Sirius whispered, “Sweetheart would.”

Regulus threw his other glove at him.

Sirius caught it against his chest, laughing.

Outside, Chicago carried on without knowing they had arrived. Cars rolled through the streets. Shop doors opened and shut. Voices rose and faded. Somewhere below, someone laughed. Somewhere else, music crackled through a radio, bright and tinny and alive.

Inside the rented room, sixteen students from the wrong time gathered around a borrowed map in transfigured clothes, trying to decide how to survive a week in history without ruining anything important.

Barty and Peter argued cheerfully over directions.

Lily corrected everyone.

James claimed he could talk to Americans naturally and was immediately banned from speaking first.

Remus quietly made a list.

Mary fixed her gloves.

Marlene practised walking in the skirt like she intended to duel it.

Alice helped Frank adjust his tie.

Fabian and Gideon inspected the window latch with worrying curiosity.

Evan watched the street.

Dorcas watched the room.

Pandora watched Regulus with artistic pride.

Sirius watched his brother and kept grinning.

And Regulus Black, curled bob shining, dress immaculate, expression venomous, stood in the middle of 1950s Chicago and declared, with absolute conviction,

“I am not saying gee whiz.”

The room erupted.

For the first time since the spell had gone wrong, even Regulus smiled.

By the time they finished arguing over the map, the room had started to feel less like temporary shelter and more like a committee meeting held inside a wardrobe.

There were hats on the bed.

Shoes beneath chairs.

A full skirt draped over James’s knee because Marlene had somehow convinced Pandora to adjust the hem while still wearing it and then immediately abandoned the fabric halfway through to complain about how history hated women with knees.

A folded Chicago map lay across the table like a battlefield.

Three different piles of transfigured money sat beside it, sorted by Lily, Peter, and Barty, because Lily cared about safety, Peter cared about accuracy, and Barty cared about crime with aesthetic integrity.

Sirius Black was lounging in the chair nearest the window with his legs stretched out, looking offensively comfortable in his sharp borrowed-decade suit.

Regulus Black was perched beside him in a second chair, ankles crossed, curls still bobbed neatly beneath Pandora’s smug handiwork, looking like the prettiest person ever sentenced to seven days in America.

He had not forgiven anyone.

He had also not changed back.

Which, to Pandora, meant victory.

“We need a story,” Remus said, tapping his quill against the edge of his notebook.

He had already charmed the quill to look like a pencil. He had also charmed the notebook to look like a cheap little paper pad with a worn cardboard cover, because Remus Lupin took blending in seriously in the same way James took Quidditch seriously and Barty took historical organised crime seriously.

With alarming intensity.

“We have a story,” James said from where he was sitting on the bed. “We’re normal.”

Lily looked at him.

James lifted both hands. “Fine. We’re not normal. We’re charming.”

“Also no.”

“We’re at least memorable.”

“That,” Dorcas said, “is the exact problem.”

Barty leaned back on his hands from the floor, his tie loosened, his hair still slicked into something that made him look like he had just stepped out of a suspicious back room with a winning hand and someone else’s wallet. “We need something simple. Too complicated and we’ll forget it. Or James will improvise.”

James brightened. “I’m excellent at improvising.”

“You bowed at a lamppost,” Peter said.

“I thought we agreed not to bring that up again.”

“No one agreed,” Remus said.

“I silently agreed with myself.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“It does in my heart.”

Lily rubbed her forehead. “Simple. Plausible. Flexible.”

“Flexible enough to survive Fabian,” Mary said.

Fabian, who was lying dramatically across the foot of the bed, lifted his head. “I’m incredibly believable.”

Gideon looked at him. “You tried to pay for tea with a sickle-shaped button you found in your pocket.”

“I panicked.”

“You said, ‘One currency, please.’”

“I said I panicked.”

Alice, sitting beside Frank with her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, smiled despite herself. “We should give the story to the people least likely to ruin it.”

Everyone looked at Peter.

Peter blinked.

“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

Barty swung toward him at once, suddenly attentive. “History boy. Build us a lie.”

Peter sat up straighter, visibly startled by the responsibility and almost glowing under it.

“Well,” he began, cautious but warming quickly, “Sirius and Regulus are the easiest because their accents are real and we’re not changing them.”

“Correct,” Regulus said.

“Because someone refused,” Lily muttered.

Regulus smiled sweetly at her. “I am loyal to my vowels.”

Sirius nodded. “Family tradition.”

Peter continued, “So they’re English siblings. Travelling. From a wealthy family.”

“Tragically believable,” Marlene said.

Sirius placed a hand over his chest. “I was born to look expensive.”

“You were born to look like you’d steal from expensive people,” James said.

“That too.”

Regulus sighed. “Sirius and I are English siblings travelling to meet family.”

Remus wrote it down. “Good. Meet family where?”

“Chicago,” James said.

Lily stared at him again.

“What?”

“They are already in Chicago.”

“Exactly. They did it.”

Mary laughed under her breath.

Peter leaned forward, thinking. “They’re travelling to meet family, but plans are loose. Maybe family connections through me.”

Barty snapped his fingers. “Yes. You’re their American cousin.”

Peter froze. “Me?”

“Yeah.”

Sirius pointed at him. “That works. You know things.”

“I know history.”

“Close enough to family.”

Peter looked at Regulus, as if expecting objection.

Regulus studied him for a moment, then shrugged delicately. “Acceptable.”

Peter’s face did something complicated and pleased.

Barty grinned at him. “Congratulations. You’re related to aristocratic nightmares.”

Peter looked between Sirius and Regulus. “I’m not sure my mother would survive the news.”

“Sensible woman,” Regulus said.

“So Peter is their American cousin,” Lily said, writing it onto Remus’s paper because Remus’s handwriting was neater but Lily did not trust anyone else to format a lie properly. “The rest of us?”

“Peter’s American friends,” Dorcas said.

Peter blinked again. “All of you?”

“Popular lad,” Fabian said.

Peter looked so genuinely touched by the idea that the room softened for about two seconds before Barty ruined it by draping an arm around his shoulders.

“My dear cousin-by-fraud,” Barty said, “you are a social butterfly now.”

Peter smiled weakly. “That feels like more pressure than time travel.”

“You’ll cope.”

“I don’t know if I will.”

“You will,” Barty said with absolute confidence. “I’ll aggressively support you.”

“That sounds threatening.”

“It is.”

Mary leaned over Lily’s shoulder. “So. Sirius and Regulus are English siblings travelling to meet family. Peter is their American cousin. The rest of us are Peter’s American friends and we’re all hanging out.”

“That sounds like the start of a very strange film,” Marlene said.

James lifted his hand. “I vote we call the film Peter and the Aristocratic Nightmares.”

“No,” Peter said quickly.

Sirius pointed at him. “Too late. That’s your life now.”

Regulus crossed his legs at the ankle and looked at the map. “We still need names.”

“Names?” Frank asked.

Regulus glanced around. “Some of us have ridiculous names.”

“Excuse me,” Sirius said. “I have a majestic name.”

“You are named after a star and look like a street magician.”

“I’m named after the brightest star in the night sky.”

“You say that like you don’t regularly lose arguments with doors.”

Sirius gasped. “That door was stuck.”

“You pulled instead of pushed.”

“It was misleading.”

Remus looked up from the notebook. “Regulus is right.”

Sirius, offended twice over, said, “About the door?”

“About names.”

“Oh.”

Barty nodded. “The more unusual ones will stand out. Regulus, Sirius, Remus, Marlene, Dorcas, Pandora, Fabian.”

Fabian sat upright. “What’s wrong with Fabian?”

Gideon gave him a sympathetic look. “You sound like you own a fainting couch.”

“I could.”

“You couldn’t afford one.”

“I could steal one.”

Lily’s pencil stopped moving. “No stealing furniture.”

Fabian dropped back onto the bed. “History is joyless.”

Marlene crossed her arms. “Why am I on the odd-name list?”

“Because,” Barty said, “this is nineteen-fifties America, not a dramatic Scottish castle.”

“I like my name.”

“Keep it in your heart.”

“I’ll keep my fist in your face.”

“See?” Barty said. “That’s very Marlene. We need something less punchy.”

Dorcas gave him a look. “And mine?”

“Yours sounds ancient and intimidating.”

“It is ancient and intimidating.”

“Exactly.”

Pandora smiled dreamily. “Mine is lovely.”

“Yes,” Evan said. “And impossible to explain.”

Pandora considered this, then nodded. “Fair.”

Regulus lifted one gloved hand. “Absolutely not.”

Pandora turned to him, eyes sparkling. “You need a girl name.”

“I need freedom.”

“You need a girl name.”

“I need all of you to stop saying things in that order.”

James pointed at him with a grin. “If we’re all making you a girl—”

“We are not all making me anything,” Regulus said.

“—then you need a girl name,” James finished.

Sirius suddenly sat up.

Regulus looked at him and immediately narrowed his eyes. “No.”

Sirius’s grin spread slowly across his face.

“No.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Sirius.”

“Regina.”

The room stopped.

Then it exploded.

James fell sideways onto Remus.

Marlene kicked the bed frame.

Mary clapped a hand over her mouth.

Alice laughed in a bright helpless burst.

Frank tried so hard not to laugh that his ears went red.

Fabian shouted, “Regina!”

Gideon wheezed, “Oh, that’s foul.”

Pandora looked like she had witnessed divine intervention. “Regina.”

Dorcas nodded with grave approval. “Elegant. Evil. Works.”

Evan looked at Regulus and said, “You do look like a Regina.”

Regulus stared at Sirius with the slow horror of someone watching his own brother betray him with perfect aim.

Sirius spread his hands. “What? I refuse to give up calling my brother Reggie.”

“You have chosen violence.”

“I have chosen continuity.”

“You have chosen your funeral.”

“Reggie,” Sirius said, delighted. “Regina. It’s perfect.”

Regulus’s voice went dangerously soft and beautifully feminine. “Sirius Black, I will sew your mouth shut with your own hair.”

Sirius pointed at him. “See? Regina.”

Peter was trying to write it down and laugh at the same time, which resulted in the pencil making a small jagged line across the page.

Lily took the notebook from him gently. “I’ll write.”

Regulus stood.

Pandora immediately caught his wrist. “Wait. Please don’t leave. You’re the centrepiece.”

“I am not a centrepiece.”

“You are now.”

Regulus looked at Evan. “Control your sister.”

Evan shook his head. “Impossible.”

Barty leaned back, hands behind his head. “Regina Black. Fancy English girl travelling with her older brother Sirius Black to meet American cousin Peter Pettigrew.”

“Don’t make me sound like a newspaper announcement,” Regulus snapped.

Mary tilted her head. “It is a very good name.”

“No, it is a very good crime.”

Sirius leaned toward him, smiling bright and fond. “Reggie.”

Regulus glared.

Sirius’s grin softened just a little, turning warmer at the edges. “Come on. Still you.”

Regulus held the glare for another second.

Then he sat back down with immense dignity.

“I reserve the right to make your alias stupid.”

“Done,” Sirius said instantly. “Give me something dashing.”

Regulus’s eyes sharpened.

“Never mind,” Sirius said.

They eventually made the list with far more debate than necessary.

Regulus became Regina, by force of sibling tyranny and democratic betrayal.

Sirius, after Regulus threatened to name him Mildred out of revenge, accepted Simon only because James said it made him sound like a disappointing prince and Sirius found that funny.

Remus became Raymond, because Peter said it sounded ordinary enough, and Remus muttered that he would answer to anything if it ended the conversation.

Marlene became Maggie after rejecting twelve options, including Martha, Maureen, and one deeply unfortunate suggestion from Fabian of “Myrtle,” which nearly got him murdered with a pillow.

Dorcas became Donna, which she accepted with the expression of someone allowing history to live.

Pandora became Penny, after Alice suggested it gently and Pandora declared it cute enough for temporary existence.

Fabian became Fred, and then spent five minutes insisting he looked more like a Freddie, which made Gideon call him “Freddie Furniture-Thief” until Lily threatened them both with separate rooms.

“Right,” Lily said at last, reading from the notebook. “Sirius is Simon. Regulus is Regina. Peter stays Peter. James stays James. Remus is Raymond. Lily stays Lily. Mary stays Mary. Marlene is Maggie. Alice stays Alice. Frank stays Frank. Fabian is Fred. Gideon stays Gideon. Barty stays Barty?”

Barty looked offended. “What’s wrong with Barty?”

“Many things,” Evan said.

“Name-wise.”

“It still sounds like the name of a boy who knows too much about tommy guns,” Dorcas said.

Barty smiled. “Then it is accurate.”

Peter nodded. “Barty can pass as a nickname.”

“Exactly,” Barty said. “Bart if needed.”

“You hate Bart,” Evan said.

“I do. But I hate being historically vulnerable more.”

Lily continued. “Evan stays Evan.”

Evan nodded once.

“Pandora is Penny. Dorcas is Donna.”

“Fine,” Dorcas said.

Pandora smiled. “Penny and Regina.”

Regulus pointed at her without looking. “Do not make us a matching set.”

“You’re already dressed like one.”

“I know where you sleep.”

“You know where everyone sleeps. There are sixteen of us and four rooms.”

Regulus exhaled through his nose.

Sirius, still beaming, leaned back in his chair. “This is marvellous.”

Regulus turned his gaze on him. “Simon.”

Sirius froze.

Everyone else went silent with anticipation.

Regulus smiled. “Dear brother.”

Sirius’s face flickered. “Actually, I hate it now.”

“No,” Regulus said. “No take-backs.”

James collapsed laughing again.

Lily put the pencil down. “Now that we have names, we need behaviour.”

“What’s wrong with our behaviour?” James asked.

Lily looked at him.

James nodded. “Right. Open question. Dangerous.”

“Especially Sirius and Regulus,” Mary said.

“Simon and Regina,” Fabian corrected.

Regulus snapped his head toward him.

Fabian held up both hands. “Alias accuracy.”

Dorcas pointed at the siblings. “They’re meant to be posh English aristocrat siblings. One of them is dressed as a girl.”

“One of them is being oppressed,” Regulus said.

“One of them is surprisingly good at it,” Evan said.

Regulus’s glare moved to him.

Evan did not blink.

Alice leaned forward. “You need to act like it. Not just dress like it.”

“I always act posh,” Sirius said.

“No,” Remus said. “You act like you escaped posh.”

“That’s still posh.”

“It’s fugitive posh.”

Frank looked at Regulus. “And if everyone thinks Regulus is a girl, then the way people expect Sirius to act changes too.”

Sirius’s grin faded slightly into focus. “Meaning?”

Mary sat back, thoughtful. “You’re the older brother. You lead. You walk on the outside, nearest the road. You let Regina hold your elbow. You do the talking first if strange men approach.”

Regulus made a face. “I can talk.”

“We know,” Lily said. “That’s the danger.”

“I’m excellent at talking.”

“You’re excellent at insulting a nation while dressed like a porcelain swan.”

“That is a niche skill.”

“It is not survival.”

Alice was gentle but firm. “It’s not about whether you can. It’s about what people expect. If you’re meant to be a young lady travelling with your brother, he would be protective.”

Sirius nodded slowly, absorbing it. “More protective than I already am?”

Regulus glanced at him sideways. “Don’t sound so excited.”

“I’m an eldest brother. This is my calling.”

“You once pushed me into a hedge.”

“You were seven and deserved it.”

“I was five.”

“You were advanced for your age.”

Regulus gave him a flat look.

Sirius softened again, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Fine. Yes. I walk with you. You hold my elbow. I lead. I glare. I do terrifying brother.”

“You already do irritating brother,” Regulus said.

“Terrifying is just irritating with shoulders.”

Marlene pointed at Regulus. “And you can’t stride like you’re going to duel the pavement.”

Regulus looked offended. “I do not.”

“You do,” everyone said.

Even Evan.

Especially Evan.

Regulus looked around the room. “Cowards. All of you.”

Pandora rose, delighted to demonstrate. “You need smaller steps.”

“I will not mince.”

“Not mince. Glide.”

“I will not glide.”

“You already glide when you’re being dramatic.”

“Against my will.”

Pandora held out both hands and tugged him up. He stood reluctantly, full skirt settling around his knees, cardigan neat, bobbed curls bouncing as if they too were in on the joke.

Pandora moved him beside Sirius.

“Arm,” she instructed.

Sirius offered his elbow with exaggerated nobility. “Dear sister.”

Regulus stared at it like it was diseased.

“Take it,” Lily said.

“I hate this assignment.”

“Take it.”

Regulus slid his gloved hand through Sirius’s arm.

Sirius immediately straightened, chin lifting. In a blink, the lounging runaway vanished and there stood exactly what their story needed: a polished English older brother, dark-haired, sharp-faced, expensive-looking, and attentive in a way that made him seem ready to step between Regulus and the entire city.

Regulus must have noticed too, because his expression altered by a fraction.

Not softer.

Never that obvious.

But quieter.

Sirius glanced down at him. “All right, Reggie?”

Regulus’s jaw ticked at the name, but his voice came out light and sweet. “Perfectly, Simon.”

Sirius grimaced.

Everyone else cheered.

“Walk,” Dorcas ordered.

They walked.

At first, it was ridiculous.

Sirius went too slow.

Regulus went too fast.

Their elbows knocked.

Regulus nearly stepped on Sirius’s shoe.

Sirius whispered, “You are the worst lady I have ever escorted.”

Regulus whispered back, “You are the worst escort I have ever endured.”

“I’m the only escort you’ve ever endured.”

“And already the worst.”

Pandora clapped. “Again.”

They tried again.

This time Sirius adjusted. He led more naturally, guiding Regulus with tiny shifts of his arm, turning his body slightly toward him when they stopped. Regulus, despite his complaining, adapted quickly. His steps shortened. His shoulders relaxed into a more delicate line. He let Sirius set the pace while still somehow looking like he secretly owned the street.

Mary nodded. “Better.”

Alice smiled. “Much better.”

James stared. “That’s actually frighteningly convincing.”

Remus nodded. “Simon and Regina Black.”

Sirius looked pained. “Don’t enjoy it.”

“I’m enjoying it,” James said.

“I know. Stop.”

Regulus tipped his head back to look up at Sirius. “You’re very protective for someone named Simon.”

“And you’re very mouthy for someone named Regina.”

“Regina outranks Simon.”

“In what?”

“Everything.”

Sirius opened his mouth, considered, and shrugged. “Fair.”

The room laughed again, and the laughter carried them through the last of the planning before hunger finally overruled historical anxiety.

They went to the diner in carefully arranged clusters, not too many at once, not too obviously together, but near enough that no one vanished into the wrong century alone.

The diner sat on a corner beneath a red-and-white sign that buzzed faintly against the darkening afternoon. Through the windows, chrome shone beneath warm light. Booths lined the walls. A counter stretched along one side, dotted with stools. A jukebox stood near the back like a shrine to noise. The smell hit them before they opened the door: frying oil, coffee, sugar, toasted bread, meat, hot milk, and something sweet enough to make Peter inhale like he had found heaven.

“Milkshakes,” Barty whispered.

Peter nodded solemnly. “Milkshakes.”

Regulus muttered, “If this is the peak of American cuisine, I will weep.”

Sirius patted his hand where it rested in the crook of his elbow. “Chin up, Regina.”

Regulus smiled without showing teeth. “Simon, darling, I’m going to kill you in your sleep.”

“See? Sweet as anything.”

Inside, the noise wrapped around them immediately. Plates clinked. A waitress laughed behind the counter. Someone at a booth argued over baseball. The jukebox crackled with a song none of them knew. It was bright, busy, and far too public.

Lily kept her face calm.

Mary walked like she belonged.

Dorcas scanned every corner.

Evan stayed beside Pandora.

James tried to look casual and nearly waved at a stranger before Remus caught his sleeve.

“Don’t.”

“I was being friendly.”

“You were being memorable.”

“Right. Bad.”

They took two booths and part of the counter, pretending this was normal, pretending they had done it a hundred times, pretending nobody had a wand concealed beneath their carefully transfigured clothes.

Sirius and Regulus slid into one booth with Pandora, Evan, Dorcas, and Mary. Sirius took the outside seat automatically, with Regulus tucked safely beside the window.

Regulus looked at the seating arrangement, then at Sirius.

Sirius lifted his brows.

Regulus said nothing.

But he also did not move.

In the next booth, James, Lily, Remus, Peter, Barty, and Marlene crammed together in a configuration that made James complain about elbows within ten seconds. Alice, Frank, Fabian, and Gideon took stools at the counter after Fabian declared it “the most American-looking bit” and Lily warned him not to spin.

Fabian immediately spun once.

Gideon stopped him by grabbing the back of his jacket.

A waitress approached with a pad in hand, gum snapping between her teeth. “What’ll it be?”

Everyone forgot how food worked.

Peter recovered first. “Coffee, please.”

Barty looked at him with reverence. “You sound local.”

Peter blushed. “I said two words.”

“Historically powerful words.”

James scanned the menu as if it were written in runes. “What’s a malt?”

Peter lit up. “Oh, that’s—”

Barty lit up too. “It’s—”

They both stopped.

Then, together, they said, “Malted milk powder in a milkshake.”

The waitress stared.

Lily smiled tightly. “They’re very enthusiastic about dairy.”

The waitress shrugged. “Ain’t the worst thing I heard today.”

Barty leaned toward Peter. “We need one.”

Peter nodded. “For research.”

“For survival.”

“For research survival.”

James pointed at them. “They’re doing it again.”

“They’re allowed,” Lily said. “They’re useful.”

Barty looked smug.

Peter looked proud.

Orders slowly formed. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, coffee, milkshakes, malts, pie for Fabian because he saw one behind the counter and immediately developed a spiritual bond with it. Regulus stared at the menu with visible mistrust until Mary quietly recommended something simple and Sirius ordered it for him with easy brotherly confidence.

Regulus glanced at him again.

Sirius leaned back. “What?”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Being responsible for you? Immensely.”

“You pushed me into a hedge.”

“You keep bringing that up.”

“It was formative.”

“You laughed.”

“I had leaves in my mouth.”

“You still laughed.”

Regulus looked away, but the corner of his mouth lifted.

Pandora saw it.

Pandora said nothing, because even she knew not to scare rare wildlife.

When the food arrived, James nearly forgot every rule of subtlety.

“Look at this,” he whispered, staring at his plate. “This is obscene.”

Marlene picked up a fry. “It’s just potato.”

“It’s American potato.”

Regulus inspected his own plate. “It’s loud.”

Sirius looked at the food. “How is food loud?”

“It simply is.”

Mary lifted her glass. “The milkshake’s good.”

Barty and Peter both took their first sips at the same time.

They froze.

Then Barty said, very seriously, “I understand America now.”

Peter nodded. “I understand several political decisions less, but the milkshake is excellent.”

Remus, drinking coffee with the grim expression of someone pretending to be older than he was, looked over the rim of the cup. “Careful. If you two keep agreeing, something dangerous will happen.”

“Friendship?” Peter asked.

“Worse,” Lily said. “A shared project.”

Barty pointed his straw at Peter. “We could make a guide.”

“No,” Lily said.

“A small guide.”

“No.”

“Pocket-sized.”

“Absolutely not.”

Peter whispered, “It would be useful.”

Lily hesitated.

Barty grinned.

Lily pointed at both of them. “One page.”

Barty and Peter exchanged a look of triumph so intense it should have been illegal.

Across the aisle, Fabian had discovered pie.

“This,” he announced, “is why time travel exists.”

Gideon stole a bite.

Fabian gasped. “Brother.”

“You were taking too long to describe it.”

“I was communing with it.”

Frank, seated beside Alice, quietly slid his own untouched whipped cream toward her. Alice smiled at him in a way that made him suddenly very interested in his napkin.

Marlene caught it from the booth and leaned toward Mary. “Frank’s gone red.”

Mary looked. “Frank is always half-red around Alice.”

Frank heard and stared harder at his napkin.

Alice pretended not to, but her smile deepened.

As plates emptied and milkshakes sank lower in their glasses, the conversation turned back toward survival.

Remus pulled the little notebook from inside his jacket and placed it on the table between plates. “We need a plan for the week.”

James groaned. “Can we not plan while eating?”

Lily said, “We absolutely can.”

“We are in a diner.”

“We are in the past.”

“That’s no excuse for homework.”

“It is the best excuse for homework.”

Peter leaned over. “We need food, shelter, money, local knowledge, routines, and a way not to attract attention.”

Barty nodded. “And jobs.”

The table went still.

“Jobs?” James repeated, as if Barty had suggested voluntary dragon dentistry.

Barty shrugged. “Some of us need to get jobs.”

“No,” James said.

“Yes,” Lily said immediately.

James turned to her, betrayed. “Evans.”

“Cash runs out. We need to survive a week, and we cannot keep transfiguring money recklessly.”

“Why not?”

“Because if the spellwork slips, someone will try to buy pie with a galleon.”

Fabian, at the counter, raised a hand. “In my defence—”

“No,” Lily said.

Fabian lowered his hand.

Remus wrote “jobs” in the notebook.

Marlene stared at it like the word had personally insulted her. “What jobs?”

“That’s the issue,” Mary said. “What can any of us actually do?”

“I can do loads,” James said.

Lily lifted her brows.

“I can fly.”

“No broom.”

“I can hex.”

“No hexing.”

“I can charm people.”

“Not magically.”

James hesitated.

Sirius leaned over from the next booth. “Debatable.”

James pointed at him. “Thank you.”

“That wasn’t praise.”

Regulus took a dainty sip of his drink and said, “Potter could be employed as a public nuisance.”

James grinned. “See? He believes in me.”

“I believe someone might pay you to leave.”

Dorcas tapped her fingers on the table. “Realistically, most of us don’t know how to do anything useful in this world.”

“Speak for yourself,” Marlene said.

“What would you do?”

“Hit things.”

“Legally.”

Marlene paused. “Hit things for money?”

Mary laughed. “Not subtle.”

Frank looked thoughtful. “Manual work?”

“Maybe,” Peter said. “But we’d need to know where, and some places might ask too many questions.”

Remus stared at the notebook with a resigned expression. “I can sweep somewhere.”

James immediately turned. “Moony.”

“What?”

“You’re not sweeping.”

“I can sweep.”

“You’re clever.”

“Clever people can hold brooms.”

Sirius muttered, “Not those brooms.”

Remus ignored him. “Or somewhere with books. Library assistant, bookshop, clerk, anything quiet. I can organise shelves.”

Lily nodded. “That’s actually plausible. Raymond finds somewhere either sweeping or with books.”

Remus sighed at the alias but did not fight it.

Pandora leaned forward from her booth. “I can sew.”

Evan nodded before anyone else could speak. “She can. Very well.”

Pandora smiled. “Seamstress work. Alterations. Mending. Pretty things. Practical things.”

Mary’s expression softened and sharpened at the same time. “If we can find a place that hires Black girls.”

The sentence sat between them, not heavy enough to crush the mood, but real enough to make the chrome and lights of the diner seem sharper.

Pandora only tilted her head, still calm. “Then we find one.”

Dorcas nodded. “We look in the right areas. We ask carefully.”

Barty glanced at Peter. Peter nodded, already thinking through the map.

“Possible,” Peter said quietly. “We’ll need to scout.”

Pandora looked pleased. “Penny the seamstress.”

Regulus said, “That sounds like a children’s book.”

Pandora beamed. “And Regina the milkshake poisoner.”

“I will pour this over you.”

Sirius gently shifted Regulus’s glass farther from Pandora.

Regulus looked at him.

Sirius said, “Protective big brother.”

“I hate that you’re good at this.”

“I love that I’m good at this.”

Barty leaned over the booth divider. “What about you two? Fancy English siblings need jobs?”

Regulus gave him a cold look. “Why do we need jobs?”

“Because you look expensive,” Dorcas said. “Expensive people need explanations for having money.”

Sirius rubbed his jaw. “We can do music.”

James perked up. “You can?”

Sirius looked offended. “Of course we can.”

Regulus glanced at him. “You barely practise.”

“I practise.”

“You once played scales out of spite for forty minutes.”

“That counts.”

“That traumatised the portrait gallery.”

“It traumatised Mother’s vase collection. The portraits loved it.”

For once, his voice carried no bitterness. Only a bright, ridiculous warmth, the kind that made it clear the memory was not a wound but a family story polished smooth by being retold. Regulus’s mouth twitched again.

James noticed.

So did Remus.

Neither said a word.

Sirius, warming to the subject, leaned forward with a grin. “I took up trumpet when I was little specifically to mess with our parents.”

Regulus nodded solemnly. “He was a menace.”

“I was an artist.”

“You were eight.”

“Prodigy.”

“You played outside their bedroom door at seven in the morning.”

“Commitment.”

Regulus looked around the table. “Mother threatened to hide the trumpet in the attic.”

Sirius pointed at him. “But she didn’t.”

“Because father said if she did, you’d only find something louder.”

Sirius looked proud. “Father understood me.”

Barty blinked. “Your parents let you keep a trumpet?”

“Of course,” Sirius said. “They’re not monsters.”

Regulus added, “They were proud of him for sticking with it once they realised it was not a passing act of terrorism.”

“See?” Sirius said. “Supportive household.”

James stared at them with open fascination. “So your parents still allowed Sirius near brass instruments?”

Regulus said, “They made many mistakes.”

Sirius flicked a fry at him.

Regulus caught it.

Everyone paused.

Regulus looked at the fry in his gloved hand, faintly horrified.

Sirius whispered, “Nice.”

Regulus put the fry down like evidence. “Do not throw American potato at me.”

Barty grinned. “That sentence alone was worth time travel.”

Lily, smiling despite herself, pointed her pencil at Sirius. “Trumpet. Classically trained?”

“Yes.”

“Regulus?”

“Piano,” Sirius said before Regulus could answer.

Regulus rolled his eyes. “Yes. Piano.”

“Classically trained?”

“Since I was young.”

Sirius nudged him lightly. “He’s very good.”

Regulus did not look at him. “He’s tolerable on trumpet.”

“Tolerable? I’m brilliant.”

“You are loud.”

“Brilliantly loud.”

“Mother called it character-building.”

“She loved it.”

“She loved you. There is a difference.”

Sirius smiled, pleased in that easy older-brother way. “Still love.”

Regulus’s face went carefully bored, which fooled absolutely no one.

Mary leaned her chin on her hand. “So Simon and Regina can do music.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Sirius said.

“Simon and Regina,” James repeated dreamily. “A glamorous sibling act.”

Regulus pointed at him. “You will not survive the week.”

Evan looked thoughtful. “Music could work. Diners, clubs, hotels, restaurants. Depends where. Depends who hires.”

“Sexism,” Lily said.

“Unfortunately,” Peter agreed. “But if Regulus is passing as a girl and plays piano, that could actually help in some places. A pretty girl at a piano is less threatening than a group of strange boys asking for work.”

Regulus stared.

Peter immediately panicked. “I mean historically. Not—”

Barty leaned over and stage-whispered, “You called him pretty.”

Peter went red. “Everyone has called him pretty.”

Regulus’s expression turned smug despite himself.

Sirius looked delighted. “Regina’s beauty saves us.”

Regulus lifted his milkshake with murderous calm. “I am deciding who to poison first.”

Pandora clapped softly. “This is such a good plan.”

“Of course you think so,” Dorcas said. “Your plan begins and ends with Regulus staying dressed like that.”

“It also includes employment,” Pandora said.

“Barely.”

Regulus leaned back, considering despite the complaint in his eyes. “If I get a job playing piano, I refuse to sing.”

“Can you sing?” Alice asked.

Sirius answered again, “Yes.”

Regulus slowly turned his head toward him.

Sirius smiled innocently. “Protective big brother. Very proud.”

“You’re going to die.”

“Not before you play piano in a diner wearing that dress.”

James pressed both hands to his face. “I need to see this.”

“You will not.”

“Oh, I absolutely will.”

“No.”

Lily wrote it down anyway. “Possible music work for Sirius and Regulus.”

“Simon and Regina,” Fabian called from the counter.

Regulus did not even turn. “I heard that, Freddie.”

Fabian froze.

Gideon laughed so hard he nearly knocked over his glass.

“Freddie,” Regulus said again, sweeter.

Fabian pointed at Sirius. “Control your sister.”

Sirius put an arm along the back of the booth and said, with immense satisfaction, “I’m trying, but she’s terribly spirited.”

Regulus closed his eyes.

Mary whispered, “He’s too good at this.”

Dorcas whispered back, “They both are.”

They spent the next half hour turning panic into logistics.

It was not a good plan, exactly.

It was several small plans wearing one large coat.

Peter and Barty would map the surrounding streets and identify which areas were safe to wander in, which were useful, and which they should avoid. Barty kept adding unnecessarily dramatic phrases like “territorial patterns” and “possible criminal influence,” until Lily threatened to take his pencil away.

Remus would look for work somewhere quiet, preferably with books, possibly sweeping if books failed.

Pandora would look for seamstress or alterations work, with Mary and Dorcas helping scout the right places and making sure no one tried nonsense with her.

Sirius and Regulus would look for music work, ideally something short-term, paid cash, and indoors. Regulus protested every part of this except the piano. Sirius protested nothing because he found the entire thing hilarious.

James offered to help anyone with anything and was assigned “do not improvise” as his first responsibility.

Marlene wanted a job that involved carrying things, fixing things, or intimidating people, and was told intimidation was not a formal job category.

“Not with that attitude,” she said.

Alice and Frank would help with errands, messages, food, and keeping the group organised. Frank turned out to be quietly excellent at remembering details, and Alice had the sort of harmless-looking sweetness that made people answer her questions without noticing they had done it.

Fabian and Gideon were given no independent assignment at first.

They objected loudly.

Lily stared them down.

Eventually, they were assigned “assist under supervision.”

“This is discrimination,” Fabian said.

“This is pattern recognition,” Lily replied.

The diner grew busier around them as the afternoon deepened toward evening. People came and went. The waitress refilled coffees. The jukebox changed songs. Outside the windows, Chicago shone with damp light and chrome flashes, alive and strange and waiting.

Regulus had stopped complaining quite as much.

This did not mean he liked America.

It meant the milkshake was better than expected and Sirius had not stopped playing his part, sitting at the outer edge of the booth like a barrier between Regulus and the world.

Every time someone passed too close, Sirius shifted slightly.

Every time the waitress came by, Sirius answered first if Regulus hesitated.

Every time Barty called him Regina, Sirius grinned like an idiot and Regulus kicked him under the table with less force than before.

Finally, Lily closed the notebook.

“For tonight,” she said, “we go back to the rooms. Tomorrow we start properly. Jobs, scouting, food, routes, rules. No magic unless necessary. No drawing attention. No correcting people about history in public.”

Peter and Barty both looked wounded.

“No unnecessary correcting,” Lily amended.

They both relaxed.

“Also,” Remus said, “everyone uses the names.”

“No,” Sirius said at once.

Regulus smiled. “Problem, Simon?”

Sirius looked at him, betrayed. “Reggie.”

“Regina,” Pandora corrected, glowing.

Regulus took another sip of his milkshake, eyes glittering over the straw. “Yes, Simon?”

James made a sound of pure joy.

Sirius pointed at Regulus. “You are enjoying this now.”

“I am enduring it beautifully.”

“You’re weaponising it.”

“Same thing.”

Mary raised her glass. “To Regina.”

“No,” Regulus said.

Barty raised his milkshake. “To Regina.”

“No.”

Peter, smiling shyly, raised his. “To surviving the week.”

Lily lifted her coffee. “That one.”

The others joined in, glasses and mugs and milkshakes rising around the cramped diner booths.

“To surviving the week,” Remus said.

“To jobs we’re not qualified for,” Marlene added.

“To Peter’s American friends,” James said.

“To fancy English siblings,” Sirius said.

Regulus looked at him, gloved hand still resting near the glass, curls tucked prettily beneath his chin.

Then he sighed.

“To not saying gee whiz,” he said.

The toast nearly collapsed under the laughter.

The waitress glanced over from the counter.

Lily smiled brightly at her, perfectly normal, perfectly polite.

The waitress shook her head and walked away.

For one shining, ridiculous moment, it worked.

They were not Hogwarts students thrown twenty years into the past by a spell gone wrong.

They were Peter Pettigrew’s strange collection of American friends.

They were Simon and Regina Black, English siblings travelling to meet family.

They were Maggie and Raymond, Donna and Penny, Fred and Gideon, Mary and Lily, Alice and Frank, James and Barty and Evan.

They were badly prepared, overdressed, underemployed, and already one diner bill deep into their counterfeit budget.

But they had a story now.

They had names.

They had jobs to find, streets to learn, rules to fake, accents to flatten, elbows to hold, and an entire week of Chicago waiting outside like a stage lit in neon and rain.

Sirius stood first, offering his elbow with a flourish. “Come along, dear sister.”

Regulus stared at him.

The whole diner seemed to wait, though of course it did not.

Regulus slid from the booth, smoothed his skirt, placed his gloved hand lightly at Sirius’s elbow, and lifted his chin with all the poisonous grace of a princess being escorted to a beheading.

“Lead on, Simon.”

Sirius’s grin could have powered the jukebox.

Behind them, James whispered, “Best assignment ever.”

Lily whispered back, “Do not jinx it.”

Barty leaned toward Peter as they filed out. “Tomorrow we find them music work.”

Peter nodded, eyes bright. “And maybe a seamstress place for Penny.”

“And books for Raymond.”

“And no payphones for Fred.”

“Especially no payphones for Fred.”

At the counter, Fabian turned. “Why did I just feel insulted?”

Gideon patted his shoulder. “Because somewhere, somehow, you were.”

The bell above the diner door jingled as they stepped back out into the street.

Evening had settled over Chicago, all violet shadows and golden windows, cars rolling past like polished beetles beneath the streetlamps. The air smelled of rain, petrol, fried food, and possibility.

Regulus wrinkled his nose.

Sirius looked down at him. “Still hate it?”

Regulus considered the street, the noise, the lights, the ridiculous dress, the warmth of his brother’s arm beneath his hand, and the fact that tomorrow he might have to get a job as a pretty pianist named Regina.

“Yes,” he said.

Then, after a beat, he added, “But the milkshake was acceptable.”

Sirius laughed.

And together, with the others trailing around them in bright, mismatched clusters, the Black siblings walked into the wrong decade as if they had been invited.

The next morning began with Lily Evans standing in the middle of the rented room holding a notebook like a weapon and dividing sixteen people into categories.

This was never going to be peaceful.

“Food and supplies,” Lily said, pointing her pencil at Mary, Alice, Frank, Fabian, and Gideon.

Fabian raised a hand. “Why am I always placed somewhere with supervision?”

“Because yesterday you asked if a payphone could call the future.”

“It was a reasonable question.”

“It was not.”

Gideon leaned against the wall beside him, arms folded, tie already slightly crooked despite Alice having fixed it twice. “I thought it was a reasonable question.”

Lily stared at him.

Gideon cleared his throat. “I withdraw.”

“Good.” Lily turned the pencil. “Exploring nearby streets, carefully, without getting arrested, lost, recruited, challenged, questioned, or banned from anywhere: James, Remus, Marlene, Dorcas, Evan.”

James looked delighted until Remus said, “That list of things not to do was mostly for you.”

“It was not mostly for me.”

“It was at least half for you.”

Marlene stretched her arms above her head. “I can do careful.”

Mary gave her a long look.

“I can,” Marlene insisted. “I simply choose not to when it’s boring.”

Dorcas, who was already tying her shoes with the cool, steady concentration of someone preparing for a very fashionable war, said, “You’re with me. If you start anything, I’ll leave you with James.”

James clutched his chest. “I am being used as a threat now?”

“You’ve always been used as a threat,” Regulus said from the mirror.

James turned to him. “Morning to you too, Regina.”

Regulus slowly looked over his shoulder.

James smiled with far too much innocence.

Sirius, standing behind Regulus, began to laugh around a hairpin held between his teeth.

Regulus’s glare shifted through the mirror. “You are worse.”

Sirius removed the hairpin from his mouth. “I’m assisting.”

“You are enjoying this.”

“I can do both.”

Pandora Rosier stood beside them with the grave, radiant intensity of an artist preparing her masterpiece for public display.

Regulus had already learned, with dawning horror, that Pandora did not merely mean to send him and Sirius out looking appropriate.

She meant matching outfits.

Not identical, because Pandora had taste. Worse than identical. Coordinated.

Sirius wore a crisp shirt, dark trousers, polished shoes, and a beautifully cut jacket that looked expensive enough to have a family crest hidden somewhere in the lining. His hair had been styled back in glossy, careless waves that made him look even more like a handsome aristocratic disaster slumming it in history for personal amusement.

Regulus, because the universe had chosen cruelty and Pandora had chosen ribbon, wore a fitted dress in a soft pale shade beneath a dark little jacket that matched Sirius’s. His bobbed curls had been pinned on one side with a neat clip. The line of the outfit was modest, elegant, and perfectly shaped. It made him look delicate, sharp, and devastatingly posh, like someone who had been raised in a mansion full of piano music and silver spoons and knew exactly which fork could kill a man.

Regulus stared at himself in the mirror.

“No.”

Pandora beamed. “Yes.”

“No.”

“You look perfect.”

“I look like I’m about to be mailed to a duchess.”

Sirius leaned over his shoulder, grinning at their reflections. “We look expensive.”

“We look kidnappable.”

“You look kidnappable. I look like I’d make it everyone else’s problem.”

Regulus’s mouth twitched.

Pandora caught it instantly. “He likes it.”

“I do not.”

“He smiled.”

“That was a muscle spasm.”

Sirius placed both hands on Regulus’s shoulders and looked at him through the mirror. “Reggie, we are trying to get hired by people who hear music for a living. We have to look the part.”

“I can play piano in a sack.”

“Yes, but you can get paid more in that dress.”

Regulus gave him a disgusted look. “You are becoming American.”

Sirius gasped. “Take that back.”

“No.”

“That was low.”

“You deserved it.”

Lily snapped the notebook shut. “Regulus and Sirius are job hunting for music work.”

“Simon and Regina,” Barty corrected from the bed, lying on his stomach with Peter’s scribbled map spread in front of him.

Regulus pointed at him. “Do not.”

Barty propped his chin in his hand. “But those are your legal names now.”

“They are not.”

“They are historically legal.”

“That means nothing.”

Peter, who was sitting on the floor beside Barty and adding careful little notes to the map, said without looking up, “Technically, for the purpose of our cover story, it’s better if we use them consistently.”

Regulus’s expression softened just enough to spare Peter immediate destruction.

“Fine,” he said. “But only because you said it properly.”

Barty looked betrayed. “I say things properly.”

“You say things like you’re trying to sell someone contraband from a parked car.”

Barty touched his chest. “That is such a specific compliment.”

“It was not a compliment.”

“It reached me as one.”

Mary adjusted her gloves and checked the money Lily had given her group. “Are we all coming back here before tonight?”

“Yes,” Lily said. “No one stays out alone after dark unless the work requires it and there is a plan. Sirius and Regulus, if you find a place that wants you back tonight, you come back here first and tell us.”

Sirius nodded. “Yes, Mum.”

Lily pointed the pencil at him.

He held up both hands. “Yes, Lily.”

Regulus was still staring at himself in the mirror with deep personal offence. “If anyone recognises us when we go home, I’m blaming Pandora.”

Remus looked up, amused. “Recognises you from 1950s Chicago?”

“Some people have memories.”

“Sirius has been calling you Regina for less than a day and already you’re planning historical reputation management.”

Regulus lifted his chin. “I have standards.”

Sirius offered his elbow. “Come on, dear sister.”

Regulus stared at it.

The room went very quiet, because everyone knew this routine now.

Regulus hated it.

Regulus complained about it.

Regulus threatened murder over it.

Regulus also took the elbow every single time.

He slid his gloved hand into the crook of Sirius’s arm with a sigh of pure theatre. “Lead on, Simon.”

James, passing behind them with his jacket half-buttoned, whispered, “Still the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Regulus said, without turning, “You are first on my list.”

James whispered, “Worth it.”

Then they split.

Not cleanly. Nothing involving them was ever clean.

The food-and-supplies group left first, Mary in charge by sheer force of being the only person Fabian seemed mildly afraid to disappoint. Alice walked beside Frank, both of them looking respectable enough that strangers might actually answer their questions. Fabian and Gideon followed with the solemn dignity of boys who had absolutely been told not to touch anything and were already considering touching everything.

The exploring group left next. James practically bounced through the door until Dorcas grabbed the back of his jacket and reminded him that bouncing was not blending. Remus had the notebook. Marlene had the look of someone hoping history would offer her a fight. Evan had the patient expression of someone prepared to stop that happening.

Barty and Peter stayed behind a little longer with Lily, arguing over routes and possible areas to investigate for work later. Barty had appointed himself “consultant of suspicious matters.” Lily had refused to write that down.

Sirius and Regulus stepped into the street alone.

Chicago in daylight was a different beast.

Yesterday it had been strange because it was new, noisy, and wrong. Today it was worse because it expected them to participate.

The city was already awake, rumbling under a pale morning sky. Cars passed in gleaming streams. Shopkeepers opened doors. Men in hats moved briskly with newspapers tucked beneath arms. Women carried baskets, purses, parcels. Someone shouted across the street. A horn blared. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked like it had personal business with the decade.

Regulus wrinkled his nose.

Sirius looked down. “Too loud?”

“Always.”

“Smells better than Hogwarts corridor after Potions.”

“Barely.”

“You’re impossible to please.”

“I have refined taste.”

“You liked the milkshake.”

Regulus looked ahead. “The milkshake was acceptable.”

“You thought about it before bed.”

“I did not.”

“You said, ‘It wasn’t unpleasant.’”

“That is not thinking about it.”

“It’s your version of writing a love poem.”

Regulus tried not to smile and failed by half a breath.

Sirius saw it.

Sirius, wisely, did not say anything.

They walked as they had practised: Sirius on the outside nearest the road, Regulus’s hand resting neatly at his elbow, both of them moving with that strange inherited polish that made people glance once, then twice, trying to place them. They looked too clean for the street, too composed for lost students, too expensive for trouble unless the trouble had a velvet lining.

Pandora’s matching outfits did exactly what she had intended.

They looked like siblings.

They looked like money.

They looked like a story people would believe before they questioned it.

Regulus hated how effective it was.

“I’m never telling Pandora she was right,” he said.

Sirius smirked. “She knows.”

“She suspects.”

“She knows.”

“I’ll deny it.”

“She’ll enjoy that more.”

Regulus sighed. “She is a menace.”

“You love her.”

“She is still a menace.”

They passed a tailor first, then a bakery, then a little shop with radios in the window that made Sirius pause.

Regulus tugged his arm. “No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You looked at it.”

“It had a trumpet advert.”

“You are not spending our false American money on a trumpet.”

“I need one for work.”

“You have not got work.”

“I am manifesting employment.”

“You are manifesting bankruptcy.”

Sirius sighed. “You sound like Father.”

Regulus glanced at him. “Good.”

Sirius laughed. “It’s very uncanny when you’re dressed like that.”

Regulus’s voice slid smoothly into Regina’s sweet, polished register. “Dear Simon, if you mention my dress one more time, I’ll push you into traffic.”

Sirius patted his hand. “Very ladylike.”

“I know.”

They continued through streets Peter and Barty had marked as busy enough to be useful but not so crowded they’d be swallowed. Sirius scanned signs with growing interest. Regulus pretended not to scan them too.

Music work, it turned out, was not the sort of thing that advertised itself politely in big, helpful letters reading Two Temporally Displaced English Siblings Wanted, Piano and Trumpet, No Questions Asked.

They saw restaurants.

A dance hall that was shut.

A hotel lobby where Sirius slowed down until Regulus gave him a look.

A small theatre with a noticeboard but no useful posting.

A music shop where Regulus stopped despite himself, staring at the upright piano just visible through the front window.

Sirius noticed.

“Want to go in?”

“No.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re looking at it like it insulted you in a language only you understand.”

Regulus’s fingers flexed once inside his gloves.

Sirius’s teasing faded into something gentler.

“You’ll get to play today,” he said.

Regulus looked away. “I know.”

It was not nervousness.

At least, Regulus would have denied it was nervousness until the end of time.

But there was something taut in his shoulders. Something hidden under the jacket and the perfect curls and the poisonous little remarks. He had been trained since childhood. So had Sirius. Their house had always had music in it: piano in one room, strings in another, Sirius making a trumpet scream like a cat with political opinions while Walburga pretended to be outraged and Orion hid behind the newspaper with his shoulders shaking.

Music was familiar.

This was not.

This was a city in the wrong century, a false name, a false voice, a dress, a job they actually needed, and a world where every rule had teeth.

Sirius covered Regulus’s gloved hand briefly with his own.

Regulus glanced up.

Sirius grinned. “If they don’t hire us, I’ll play outside until they pay us to leave.”

Regulus stared.

Then he laughed once, small and sharp.

“That might work.”

“I’ve always been practical.”

“You have never been practical.”

“I’m practical in emergencies.”

“You once tried to open a locked cupboard with a chair.”

“The chair was available.”

“The wand in your hand was more available.”

“I panicked.”

Regulus shook his head, smiling despite himself.

Then they saw it.

A poster in the window of a narrow jazz bar tucked between a closed bookshop and a place selling cigarettes and newspapers.

The sign above the door was painted in dark letters, the edges slightly worn. By night, it probably glowed. By day, it looked tired, shadowed, and faintly secretive, like it knew things and had no intention of telling anyone for free.

The poster was simple.

Musicians Wanted.

Even in daylight, even with the front windows dim and the door shut, there was a low pulse to the place. Not sound exactly. Atmosphere. The smell of old smoke clinging to wood. The suggestion of brass. A promise of voices after dark.

Sirius stopped.

Regulus stopped with him.

They looked at the poster.

Then at each other.

Sirius lifted his brows. “Well?”

Regulus’s mouth pressed into a line.

“We need work,” Sirius said.

“I know.”

“You can play.”

“I know.”

“I can play.”

“Unfortunately.”

“They want musicians.”

“So the poster claims.”

“Scared?”

Regulus looked up at him, eyes narrowing.

Sirius smiled slowly.

Regulus released his elbow, stepped toward the door, and said, “Try to keep up, Simon.”

Sirius’s grin turned bright enough to startle the pavement.

The jazz bar was nearly empty inside.

The daylight entered reluctantly, thin and dusty through the front windows, falling across polished tables, stacked chairs, a long dark bar, and a little stage at the far end. The air smelled of old smoke, spilled whisky, lemon polish, coffee, and brass gone warm beneath hands. A few regulars sat scattered near the bar despite the early hour, men with newspapers, a woman with a cigarette between two fingers, another man half-asleep over a cup of coffee.

Behind the bar, a broad-shouldered man in shirtsleeves looked up from counting something near the till.

Two staff members paused mid-conversation.

Sirius and Regulus stood just inside the door, dressed like money had wandered into the wrong establishment and brought manners with it.

The man behind the bar stared.

Sirius smiled first.

It was a very good smile. Polished without being oily. Confident without being desperate. The sort of smile that said he had never been afraid of a room in his life, which was only sometimes true.

“Morning,” Sirius said.

Regulus, beside him, tilted his chin in that perfect little way Pandora had drilled into him. He did not smile. He allowed the room to notice him and decide it had been honoured.

The man’s eyes moved from Sirius to Regulus.

They stayed there half a second too long.

Sirius noticed.

His smile did not change.

His posture did.

Just slightly.

He stepped half an inch closer to Regulus.

“Can I help you?” the man asked.

Sirius gestured to the window. “Poster says you’re looking for musicians.”

The man looked amused now. “It does.”

“We’re musicians.”

The woman with the cigarette gave a small laugh from her table, not mocking exactly, but entertained. The sleepy man at the bar lifted his head.

The boss wiped his hands on a towel and came around the bar. He was solid, dark-haired, probably used to being obeyed in his own room. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his expression sharp with the kind of curiosity that assessed people quickly and did not apologise for it.

“You two?” he said.

Sirius’s grin tipped sideways. “That’s generally what ‘we’ means.”

Regulus glanced at him.

Sirius added, smoother, “Sir.”

The man huffed a laugh. “English?”

“Yes,” Sirius said.

Regulus’s sweet voice followed, light and composed. “Travelling.”

The boss looked at him again.

“Well,” he said, a little warmer, “aren’t you something.”

Sirius’s hand shifted behind Regulus’s back, not touching, but there.

Regulus only blinked with cool politeness. “So I’m told.”

The woman with the cigarette laughed properly this time.

The boss grinned. “You got names?”

Sirius did not hesitate. “Simon Black.”

Regulus hesitated only internally.

Outwardly, he was flawless.

“Regina Black.”

The name still felt like a crime in his mouth.

Sirius looked like he wanted to laugh and knew his life depended on not doing it.

The boss’s grin deepened. “Simon and Regina Black.”

“Yes,” Sirius said.

“Brother and sister?”

“Afraid so,” Regulus said before Sirius could answer.

Sirius turned his head slowly.

Regulus looked serene.

The boss laughed again. “She’s got teeth.”

“Many,” Sirius said.

Regulus’s elbow nudged him sharply.

“What do you play?” the boss asked.

“Trumpet,” Sirius said.

“Piano,” Regulus said.

The boss looked between them. “And you saw a jazz bar and thought that’d do?”

Sirius shrugged with beautiful arrogance. “We thought we’d improve it.”

One of the staff members snorted.

The boss’s eyebrows rose.

Regulus closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, as if praying for strength from no god he particularly respected.

Then he said, still in that sweet feminine voice, “My brother means we would be very grateful for the chance to audition.”

Sirius’s lips twitched.

The boss looked charmed despite himself. Very charmed. Specifically by Regulus, which made Sirius’s smile settle into something sharper at the edges.

“All right,” the boss said. “You audition. You’re good, maybe I can use you. You’re bad, I get a funny story.”

Regulus looked at Sirius. “If you make us a funny story, I’ll never forgive you.”

Sirius leaned down slightly. “You already never forgive me.”

“Exactly. Imagine worse.”

The boss pointed toward the stage. “Trumpet’s there. Piano’s tuned enough. Don’t break anything expensive.”

Sirius looked offended. “I’m an artist.”

Regulus murmured, “That is not a denial.”

The small stage felt larger than it should have.

Maybe because the room watched.

Maybe because the century watched.

Maybe because everything about this was ridiculous and yet mattered.

Sirius climbed up first. There was a trumpet resting in a stand near a chair, not pristine, but cared for. He picked it up carefully, tested the weight, checked the valves, and for one bright second Regulus saw him not as Simon Black in a jazz bar, not as Sirius playing a part, but as a small boy outside their parents’ bedroom door at dawn, cheeks puffed, eyes wild with mischief, blasting a note so terrible that Orion had dropped his newspaper and Walburga had shouted his full name through laughter she tried very hard to disguise.

Sirius glanced back at Regulus.

Regulus lifted one brow.

Do not embarrass us.

Sirius winked.

I absolutely might.

Then he played.

The first note cut through the daytime hush like sunlight flashing off a knife.

Not classical.

Not stiff.

Not the polished scale-work of a boy raised with tutors and practise rooms.

Sirius took what he knew and bent it.

He leaned into something bright and jazzy, something loose at the edges but precise underneath, brass sliding and dancing, playful as a grin and twice as bold. The trumpet filled the room. It bounced off the bar mirror and the polished wood, curled around the tables, tugged the sleepy regular upright by degrees.

Sirius did not play like a boy begging for work.

He played like he had already decided the room belonged to him and was generously letting everyone else stay.

Regulus stood beside the stage, arms folded, trying very hard not to look impressed.

Unfortunately, he was impressed.

The boss’s expression changed.

The staff stopped pretending not to listen.

The woman with the cigarette lowered it, smoke curling between her fingers.

Sirius shifted into a faster run, bright and laughing, then pulled back, softened it, turned the final phrase into something smooth and cheeky, and ended with a flourish that was entirely unnecessary.

Which meant it was entirely Sirius.

Silence held for half a second.

Then someone at the bar clapped once.

The woman with the cigarette smiled. “Well, all right.”

The boss crossed his arms. “Flashy.”

Sirius lowered the trumpet. “Thank you.”

“Wasn’t praise.”

“I’m taking it as praise.”

Regulus muttered, “He does that.”

The boss looked at him. “Your turn, Miss Black.”

Regulus hated how easily the room turned toward him.

He hated the dress.

He hated the name.

He hated America.

He hated the fact that the piano was waiting.

He hated, most of all, that his fingers were already aching for the keys.

He stepped onto the stage.

Sirius passed him on the way down, shoulder brushing his for the briefest second.

“You’ve got it,” Sirius murmured.

Regulus did not answer.

He sat at the piano.

The bench was a little too low. The wood was worn beneath his gloved hands. He removed the gloves slowly and placed them beside him, flexing his fingers once above the keys.

The piano was not like the one at home.

It was older, smokier, rougher. The keys had weight in strange places. One note near the middle was slightly dull. Another had a faint metallic brightness. It was not perfect.

Good.

Perfect things were harder to trust.

Regulus began softly.

A few notes first, testing.

Then a line of melody, elegant and controlled, something with classical bones. The sort of thing drilled into him from childhood, posture straight, wrists lifted, emotion disciplined until it became technique.

The boss watched.

The room listened.

Then Regulus let the melody slip.

Not break.

Slip.

He moved from polished classical phrasing into something warmer, stranger, looser. A jazz shape unfolded beneath his hands. He had not been trained for this exactly, not the way Sirius seemed to fling himself into it with reckless instinct, but Regulus was quick. Regulus listened. Regulus adapted. He took the rhythm Sirius had left in the room and answered it in his own language.

The piano changed under him.

What began as refinement became conversation.

What began as control became wit.

The notes flickered sharp and clever, then softened, then darted away again. His fingers moved beautifully, clean and fast, curls falling toward his cheek as he looked down at the keys. In the dim bar, in the ridiculous dress, under the false name, he looked less like a schoolboy pretending and more like something the decade had invented for itself: a pretty young woman at a piano with secrets in both hands.

Sirius, standing near the bar, watched with open pride.

The boss watched too.

Too warmly.

Too interested.

Sirius noticed again.

Regulus did not look up until the final chord faded.

For a second, no one spoke.

The boss exhaled. “Well.”

Regulus placed his hands in his lap. “Well?”

“You can play.”

“Yes.”

The boss smiled. “You know any songs with words?”

Regulus’s expression chilled. “I play piano.”

“Can you sing?”

“No,” Regulus said at once.

“Yes,” Sirius said at the same time.

Regulus turned slowly.

Sirius looked back with the innocent face of a man committing fratricide.

The boss’s grin spread. “That so?”

“My brother is mistaken,” Regulus said.

“My sister is modest,” Sirius said.

Regulus’s sweet voice sharpened to a blade wrapped in ribbon. “Simon.”

“Regina.”

“If you were not my brother, I would have you removed.”

“If I were not your brother, you’d be less interesting.”

The woman with the cigarette laughed again. “Let the girl sing.”

Regulus looked toward her, betrayed by a stranger.

The boss leaned against the bar. “Just a little. Need to know what I’m hiring.”

“I have not been hired.”

“Not yet.”

Regulus glanced at Sirius, and Sirius softened his grin just a touch.

Not mocking now.

Encouraging.

Still infuriating, but encouraging.

Regulus turned back to the keys.

“Fine,” he said.

He began again, simpler this time.

His voice, when it came, was the girl voice.

Not the comedic one he used to unsettle James or threaten Barty.

This was softer. Natural. Carefully pitched. Sweet without being weak, clear without being thin. It slipped over the piano like silk over a blade, pretty enough that the bar seemed to lean closer.

Sirius’s brows rose slightly.

He had known Regulus could sing.

He had not known Regulus could do that voice and make it sound like it belonged to the music.

Regulus kept his eyes on the keys, because looking up would mean seeing everyone looking at him, and that would mean admitting this was working.

It was working.

The boss’s face said so.

The staff member by the bar said so.

The woman with the cigarette said so, smiling like she had found the day’s best secret.

The song ended.

Regulus lifted his hands from the keys.

“I don’t like singing,” he said.

The boss grinned. “That’s a shame.”

“It is not.”

“It is for my business.”

Sirius, leaning one elbow against the bar now, said, “She’s temperamental.”

Regulus looked at him. “She is armed.”

The boss laughed. “Can you two play together?”

Sirius pushed away from the bar. “Easily.”

Regulus said, “Unfortunately.”

“Give me something lively,” the boss said. “Night crowd doesn’t come here to nap.”

Sirius stepped back onto the stage with the trumpet.

Regulus looked up at him from the piano. “Do not overplay.”

Sirius placed a hand dramatically over his heart. “I would never.”

“You always do.”

“I enhance.”

“You invade.”

“You adore me.”

“I tolerate you under genetic obligation.”

Sirius grinned. “Ready?”

Regulus sighed. “Try to follow the tempo.”

Sirius laughed and lifted the trumpet.

This time, they played together.

It should not have worked as well as it did.

Sirius was brightness, brass, motion. He played like trouble cutting through traffic, like a dare in a good suit, like laughter echoing down a corridor after curfew.

Regulus was precision and shadow, piano keys flickering beneath his hands, holding the shape of the song even as he bent it. He gave Sirius room, then caught him. Challenged him. Mocked him musically. Pulled the rhythm sideways just enough to make Sirius answer.

And Sirius did answer.

Trumpet to piano.

Brother to brother.

Simon to Regina.

It became a game.

Regulus tossed out a sharp little phrase.

Sirius echoed it louder.

Regulus undercut him with something smoother.

Sirius slid around it, bold and laughing.

Regulus’s mouth twitched.

Sirius saw and played brighter.

The bar changed around them.

The staff were smiling now. One of the regulars had turned fully on his stool. The sleepy man was awake. The woman with the cigarette had stopped smoking altogether.

The boss stood with his arms crossed, grinning like a man watching money walk into his club wearing matching outfits.

When they finished, Sirius held the last note just a fraction too long.

Regulus ended beneath him with a clean, final chord.

Silence.

Then the little daytime bar burst into applause from all seven or so people inside, which somehow felt more ridiculous and more triumphant than a packed hall.

Sirius bowed.

Regulus did not.

Sirius bowed again, slightly toward Regulus, forcing him into the performance of it.

Regulus gave the smallest possible dip of his head.

The applause got louder.

“Adorable,” the woman with the cigarette called.

Regulus’s face became murderously blank.

Sirius turned away so fast his shoulders shook.

The boss came toward the stage, still grinning. “You’re hired.”

Sirius hopped down first. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” The boss looked past him toward Regulus. “Both of you. Tonight.”

Regulus stepped down from the stage with Sirius’s hand automatically offered and just as automatically ignored, though he did use his brother’s arm when he reached the floor because Pandora’s training had apparently infected his muscles.

“What time?” Sirius asked.

Boss pulled a small schedule card from behind the bar and scribbled something on it. “Come back tonight. Early. We’ll get you set up before the crowd comes in.”

Sirius took the card.

The boss looked Regulus over again, not rudely enough to start a scene, but warmly enough that Sirius’s fingers tightened around the paper.

“You’ll need stage costumes,” the boss said. “Club’ll sort it. Something nice for the young lady. Something sharp for you.”

“Something modest,” Sirius said immediately.

Regulus turned to him.

The boss raised his eyebrows.

Sirius smiled pleasantly. “English family.”

Regulus, catching up instantly, placed a gloved hand on Sirius’s sleeve and lowered his eyes in a performance so sudden and so perfect that Sirius nearly choked.

“Yes,” Regulus said softly. “Simon is terribly protective.”

The boss looked charmed again.

Sirius looked like he had just been stabbed by his own bit.

Regulus did not smile.

His eyes, however, glittered.

The boss leaned against the bar, attention fixed mostly on Regulus now. “You let us worry about it. We’ll make you look like a star.”

Regulus’s voice stayed sweet. “How kind.”

Sirius’s smile grew thinner.

The woman with the cigarette watched them over her glass, amused in a way that suggested she understood more than she intended to say.

The boss reached behind the bar and produced two glasses of water without being asked, sliding one toward Sirius and the other toward Regulus.

Regulus’s glass came with a napkin folded beneath it.

Sirius stared at the napkin.

Regulus stared at Sirius staring at the napkin.

The boss said, “For the lady.”

Regulus took the glass with perfect poise. “Thank you.”

Sirius looked at him.

Regulus took one delicate sip.

Sirius’s expression said, You are enjoying this now.

Regulus’s expression said, Only because it is annoying you.

The boss continued, “Pay’s nightly. Cash. You do well, you come back the next night. You do badly, I pretend I never met you.”

“We won’t do badly,” Sirius said.

“I like confidence.”

Regulus set down the glass. “He has too much of it.”

The boss chuckled. “And you?”

“I have talent.”

Sirius made an approving sound. “There she is.”

Regulus elbowed him discreetly.

The boss laughed again, clearly delighted. “You two always like this?”

“Yes,” they said together.

Then glared at each other.

Which only made the boss laugh harder.

He handed Sirius the schedule, then wrote the address on another scrap just in case, apparently deciding the elegant young English girl should not be trusted to remember where she had been hired despite having just outplayed his piano.

Sirius took that scrap too.

Regulus watched with one eyebrow lifting slowly.

The boss leaned closer to Regulus, still on the proper side of the bar but undeniably focused. “You come back tonight, Miss Black. I’ll have something pretty ready for you.”

Sirius opened his mouth.

Regulus squeezed his arm hard enough to silence him.

Then Regulus smiled.

It was not a big smile.

It was not even a warm smile.

It was small, sweet, demure, and absolutely lethal.

“I’m sure my brother will approve,” he said.

Sirius made a sound that might have been a cough or a laugh being strangled at birth.

The boss glanced at Sirius, amused. “Will he?”

Sirius recovered beautifully. “Depends what it is.”

“Protective,” the boss said.

“Always,” Sirius replied.

Regulus looked up at him then.

For a second, beneath the performance, that was true in the old way. Not the cover story. Not the nineteen-fifties manners. Not Simon and Regina Black.

Just Sirius.

Older brother.

Standing between Regulus and the room without needing to be asked.

Regulus looked away first.

The boss tapped the bar. “Tonight, then. Don’t be late.”

“We won’t,” Sirius said.

Regulus added, “Thank you for the opportunity.”

The boss smiled at him. “Pleasure’s mine.”

Sirius’s hand found Regulus’s elbow very promptly after that.

They left the jazz bar with their schedule, their new job, and the strange knowledge that they had somehow succeeded.

The door shut behind them.

The street noise rushed back in.

For three seconds, neither of them spoke.

Then Sirius turned to Regulus.

Regulus turned to Sirius.

Sirius said, “Regina.”

Regulus said, “Simon.”

Sirius lifted the schedule card. “We got hired.”

Regulus looked at the card. “Apparently.”

“You sang.”

“Under duress.”

“You sang beautifully.”

Regulus’s face went carefully blank. “Don’t.”

“I’m proud.”

“Don’t be sentimental in public.”

“I’m incredibly proud.”

“I’ll step into traffic.”

Sirius laughed, bright and open, then tucked the card safely inside his jacket. “You were brilliant.”

Regulus looked down the street, curls shifting against his cheek. “You were very loud.”

“That means brilliant.”

“It means loud.”

“You liked it.”

“I endured it.”

“You played with me.”

“You invaded my tempo.”

“You smiled.”

“I had a facial cramp.”

Sirius offered his elbow again.

Regulus stared at it for a beat, then took it.

They began walking back toward the boarding house, posh and matched and absurdly victorious.

After a moment, Sirius said, “He definitely favours you.”

Regulus’s mouth curled. “Obviously.”

Sirius looked offended. “Obviously?”

“I’m prettier.”

Sirius barked a laugh. “You’re unbearable.”

“You created Regina.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“And now Regina has employment.”

“She also has an admirer.”

Regulus wrinkled his nose. “He likes the idea of Regina. He does not know Regina wants to hex his shoes together.”

“Regina is very complicated.”

“Regina hates America.”

“Regina liked the piano.”

Regulus was silent.

Sirius glanced down.

Regulus kept his eyes forward. “It was out of tune.”

“Mm.”

“And smoky.”

“Mm-hm.”

“And the middle register was dull.”

“Terrible.”

“And I’m going back tonight.”

Sirius smiled.

Regulus tightened his hand very slightly on Sirius’s arm. “Don’t tell Pandora she was right about the outfit.”

“Oh, I’m absolutely telling Pandora.”

“I will deny it.”

“She’ll know.”

“She always knows. It’s infuriating.”

They passed the music shop again, and this time Sirius looked at the trumpet advert without stopping.

Regulus noticed.

“Tonight,” he said, “you can be loud professionally.”

Sirius’s grin softened. “And you can be pretty professionally.”

Regulus looked up at him with cold warning.

Sirius corrected, “Talented professionally.”

“Better.”

“Pretty and talented professionally.”

“Traffic, Sirius.”

“Simon.”

“Traffic, Simon.”

Sirius laughed all the way to the corner.

By the time they reached the boarding house, the others were not all back yet. Lily was, along with Peter and Barty, who had covered half the table in notes, maps, and a list titled by Barty as Potentially Useful Establishments, which Lily had crossed out and retitled Places To Check.

Barty looked up as the door opened.

He took in Sirius’s grin, Regulus’s carefully blank expression, and the folded card in Sirius’s hand.

“No,” he said.

Peter looked up quickly. “Did you find something?”

Sirius held up the schedule.

Regulus removed his gloves finger by finger with infuriating elegance.

“We have jobs,” Sirius announced.

Barty shot upright. “Already?”

Lily blinked. “That was fast.”

Peter’s face lit. “Where?”

“Jazz bar,” Sirius said. “Musicians wanted. We auditioned.”

Regulus said, “He auditioned loudly.”

“I auditioned brilliantly.”

“Debatable.”

“You sang.”

Barty’s head snapped toward Regulus.

Peter’s eyes widened.

Lily slowly lowered her pencil.

Regulus paused.

Sirius grinned.

Regulus said, very quietly, “Simon.”

Sirius said, very brightly, “Regina sang.”

Barty made a sound like someone being handed treasure.

Peter smiled so hard he looked like he might hurt himself.

Lily’s eyebrows climbed. “You sang?”

“No.”

“Yes,” Sirius said.

“No,” Regulus repeated.

“He sang in the girl voice,” Sirius said.

Barty slapped both hands over his mouth and fell backward onto the bed.

Peter whispered, “Was it historically convincing?”

Regulus stared at him.

Peter immediately said, “Sorry. Sorry. That wasn’t the right question.”

Sirius pulled out a chair and dropped into it, still glowing. “It was incredible. The boss hired us for tonight. Club’s sorting stage costumes.”

Lily’s expression sharpened. “Costumes?”

Regulus, now removing the second glove, said, “Apparently something pretty for me.”

Barty made a muffled shriek into the mattress.

Peter’s face went pink from the effort of not laughing.

Lily looked from Regulus to Sirius. “And you’re comfortable with that?”

Regulus lifted his chin. “I am comfortable with being paid.”

Sirius said, “I’m inspecting whatever they give him.”

Regulus rolled his eyes. “Protective big brother.”

“Exactly.”

Barty rolled over, hair dishevelled. “Regina Black, jazz pianist and singer.”

Regulus threw a glove at his face.

Barty caught it and clutched it to his chest. “A relic.”

Peter, still smiling, carefully wrote on the planning sheet: Simon and Regina — hired at jazz bar, tonight.

Regulus leaned over his shoulder. “Do not write Regina with that much joy.”

Peter ducked his head. “I’m writing normally.”

“You’re smiling at the paper.”

“I’m happy you found work.”

That disarmed him.

Only slightly.

Regulus straightened. “Fine.”

Lily took the schedule from Sirius and examined it. “You’ll go tonight, but not alone.”

Sirius opened his mouth.

Lily pointed at him. “No argument.”

“I wasn’t arguing.”

“You were inhaling argument.”

“I breathe like that.”

“Take at least two people nearby. They don’t have to sit with you, but they’ll be close.”

Regulus nodded. “Reasonable.”

Sirius looked at him. “You agree with supervision?”

“I agree with witnesses.”

“To what?”

“My brilliance.”

Barty sat up slowly, eyes shining. “I have to come.”

“No,” Lily said.

“Why?”

“Because if a jazz bar exists in the same room as you and 1950s organised crime fantasies, you will vibrate through the floorboards.”

“I’ll be normal.”

Everyone looked at him.

Barty sighed. “Fine. I’ll be quiet.”

Everyone kept looking.

“I’ll be quiet-ish.”

Peter said, “I could go with him.”

Lily hesitated.

Barty turned to him with betrayal and devotion mingled horribly on his face. “You’d supervise me?”

Peter nodded. “I know what details to watch for.”

Barty smiled. “I accept my handler.”

“I didn’t say handler.”

“You implied destiny.”

Regulus dropped into a chair, skirt settling around him. “This week is going to be insufferable.”

Sirius leaned back beside him, smug and pleased and still carrying the echo of brass in his posture.

“Yes,” he said. “But we’re employed.”

Regulus looked at him.

Then at the schedule.

Then at the window, where Chicago moved beyond the glass, loud and strange and full of work they were not qualified for, places they did not know, and a night waiting to dress them up and put them on stage.

His lips curved faintly.

“Professionally insufferable,” he said.

Sirius laughed.

Barty fell back onto the bed again.

Peter wrote it down in the margin before Lily could stop him.

The others returned in pieces.

Not literally, though with Fabian and Gideon involved, Lily had clearly prepared herself for the possibility.

The first to come back were Mary, Alice, Frank, Fabian, and Gideon, carrying brown paper bags filled with food and supplies and wearing the expressions of people who had survived a battle conducted entirely through prices, shopkeepers, and Fabian’s impulse control.

Mary entered first, shoulders back, face composed, one paper bag tucked against her hip.

Alice followed with two smaller bags and an expression of bright, strained patience.

Frank came in behind her, carrying the heaviest load without seeming to notice.

Fabian and Gideon stumbled in last, both looking far too pleased with themselves.

Lily looked up from the table. “What happened?”

Mary set the bag down. “We bought food.”

“That’s all?”

“We also stopped Fabian from buying a hat.”

Fabian threw his arms out. “It was a good hat.”

“It was hideous,” Alice said gently.

“It had character.”

“It had a feather,” Frank said.

Gideon nodded solemnly. “A heroic feather.”

Mary pointed at both of them. “The heroic feather cost money we did not need to spend.”

Fabian looked wounded. “I would’ve worn it.”

“That,” Mary said, “was the threat.”

Sirius, sprawled in the chair beside Regulus with all the lazy satisfaction of a man recently employed and desperate for people to notice, lifted his head. “What kind of hat?”

“No,” Lily said immediately.

“I just asked.”

“You asked with intent.”

“I always ask with intent.”

Regulus, sitting with his legs crossed and one glove draped across his knee, glanced over. “It would have made him look like a failed magician.”

Fabian looked between them. “You didn’t even see it.”

“I know you.”

Gideon placed another bag on the table and peered at the map. “Why is Barty lying face-down on the bed?”

From the bed, Barty lifted one hand weakly. “Regina sang.”

Fabian froze.

Gideon froze.

Mary slowly turned.

Alice blinked.

Frank’s mouth opened, then closed again.

Regulus’s eyes narrowed.

Sirius’s grin widened.

“Oh,” Sirius said softly, delighted by the shape of the room about to explode. “They don’t know yet.”

Regulus turned in his chair. “Simon.”

Sirius leaned back, hands behind his head. “What? They deserve the full report.”

Mary took one slow step forward. “Regina sang?”

“No,” Regulus said.

“Yes,” said Sirius.

“No,” Regulus repeated.

“Yes,” said Barty into the mattress.

Peter, from his place at the table, added very carefully, “According to Sirius, during the audition, Regulus sang in the girl voice.”

Regulus stared at him.

Peter immediately looked back at his notes. “Sorry.”

Alice’s face lit up with the kind of joy she was too kind to weaponise properly. “Oh, Regulus.”

Regulus pointed at her. “Do not.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to say something tender.”

Alice pressed her lips together.

Frank, fighting a smile, cleared his throat. “Did you get the job?”

Sirius held up the schedule card between two fingers.

Mary’s eyebrows climbed. “Already?”

“Obviously,” Regulus said.

Fabian dropped into the nearest chair with a dramatic gasp. “You two got hired?”

“Yes,” Sirius said.

“At a jazz bar?”

“Yes.”

“For tonight?”

“Yes.”

Gideon stared. “We left you alone for one morning.”

“And we became employed,” Sirius said. “Some people are simply efficient.”

Regulus gave him a sideways look. “You nearly flirted with the boss by accident.”

“I did not.”

“You did with your trumpet.”

“That’s called performance.”

“It was showing off.”

“That’s also called performance.”

Mary sat on the edge of the bed beside Barty and poked his shoulder. “Get up. I need this explained properly.”

Barty rolled onto his back, eyes bright, hair ruffled. “Jazz bar. Musicians wanted poster. Simon on trumpet. Regina on piano. Regina also sang. The boss definitely favours her and is sorting stage costumes.”

There was a beat.

Then Fabian said, “Stage costumes?”

Regulus’s face darkened.

Sirius’s grin became unbearable.

Alice’s hands flew to her mouth.

Frank turned slightly away, shoulders shaking.

Mary looked like Christmas had arrived wearing sequins.

Gideon pointed at Regulus. “A stage costume?”

Regulus stood.

Everyone quieted at once, which was sensible of them.

The dress Pandora had forced him into fell neatly around his knees. The jacket matched Sirius’s. His bobbed curls were still pinned prettily at one side. He looked elegant, delicate, expensive, and like he was about to commit a felony with perfect posture.

He raised one hand.

And flipped them all off.

The room exploded.

Fabian howled.

Gideon slapped the table.

Mary laughed so hard she had to sit down properly.

Alice made a scandalised noise that turned into a giggle.

Frank covered his face with one hand.

Barty rolled straight off the bed and landed on the floor with a thump.

Peter looked horrified and delighted at the same time.

Lily shut her eyes as though praying for patience, but her mouth was betraying her.

Sirius tipped his head back and laughed like the universe had personally handed him a gift.

Regulus kept his finger up for one long, dignified second.

Then he lowered it, smoothed his skirt, and sat back down.

“Ask stupid questions,” he said sweetly, “receive historic gestures.”

Sirius wiped at his eyes. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I’ll get to you.”

“Protective big brother privilege.”

“Temporary immunity only.”

The door opened again before anyone could recover properly, and James Potter stepped in first, windswept, bright-eyed, and grinning like he had spent the morning personally challenging Chicago to a duel and somehow not been arrested.

Behind him came Remus, coat buttoned, notebook tucked beneath one arm, looking tired but successful. Marlene followed with her hands in her pockets and the distinct expression of someone who had wanted to kick at least three things and had been prevented from doing so. Dorcas came in cool and composed beside Evan, who looked mildly amused in the way he usually did when other people had been chaotic and he had chosen not to stop it immediately.

James stopped in the doorway.

He looked at Barty on the floor.

He looked at Fabian red-faced from laughing.

He looked at Regulus seated in his perfect outfit, radiating murder.

He looked at Sirius, who was still wiping away tears.

“What did we miss?” James asked.

Everyone answered at once.

“Regina sang.”

“They got hired.”

“Stage costumes.”

“He flipped us off.”

“Jazz bar tonight.”

“The boss fancies Reg.”

Regulus snapped his head toward Fabian. “I never said that.”

Sirius pointed at him. “But he does.”

Regulus turned on him. “Do not encourage the peasants.”

James slowly stepped inside, eyes widening with pure, dawning joy. “Wait. Wait. Wait. You got hired?”

“Yes,” Sirius said.

“At a music place?”

“Yes.”

“And Regulus sang?”

“No,” Regulus said.

“Yes,” said everyone else.

James put both hands on his head and turned in a circle like he needed somewhere to put all the delight. “I leave for one morning and my tiny evil Slytherin brother-in-law becomes a jazz singer.”

Regulus stared. “Your what?”

James froze.

Sirius stopped laughing.

Remus muttered, “Interesting choice of words.”

James pointed at Regulus, then at Sirius, then at no one. “I panicked.”

“You panicked into brother-in-law?” Lily asked.

“I was overwhelmed.”

“By what?”

“History. Jazz. Regina.”

Regulus stood again.

James immediately backed up. “No, no, no, I’m sorry, Regina.”

Regulus took one step.

James hid behind Marlene.

Marlene moved aside.

“Betrayal,” James said.

Marlene shrugged. “I want to see what happens.”

Dorcas shut the door behind them. “Before James dies, we found a few useful places.”

That calmed the room by about three inches.

Lily lifted her notebook. “Good. Report.”

James looked offended. “You didn’t ask if we suffered.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Then report.”

Remus came to the table and took the pencil Peter offered him. “We covered the streets north and east of here. Nothing too far. I found a few places hiring.”

Regulus sat back down, still glaring at James.

Sirius leaned toward him. “You’re adorable when employed.”

Regulus whispered, “Traffic.”

Sirius smiled. “Still worth it.”

Remus unfolded a scrap of paper and smoothed it over the map. “There’s a bookshop with a sign in the window asking for help. Stockroom, sweeping, arranging shelves, errands. I didn’t speak to them yet because we were still scouting, but I can go back tomorrow and check.”

Lily nodded. “That sounds promising.”

“Also a small newspaper office with a notice about copy runners. Might be too public, too many questions, but possibly useful. And a grocer looking for someone to sweep and help unload, though that’s more labour and less books.”

James clapped him on the shoulder. “Moony, master of employment.”

Remus looked at his hand.

James removed it.

“Raymond,” Peter corrected softly, glancing toward the window.

Remus sighed. “Raymond, master of employment.”

Barty sat up from the floor. “That sounds like a deeply boring superhero.”

“Still more useful than Bart, consultant of suspicious matters,” Lily said.

Barty looked delighted. “You remembered the title.”

“I crossed it out.”

“But you remembered it.”

Dorcas leaned against the wall. “We also found a couple of areas to avoid after dark.”

Evan nodded. “And a few places that might be useful for information. Cafés, newsstands, that sort of thing.”

Marlene flopped into a chair and kicked one leg out, then remembered the skirt situation from yesterday and adjusted. “No fights. You’re welcome.”

Mary gave her a look. “Was that difficult?”

“Yes.”

Evan said, “She tried to glare a man into dropping his cigarette.”

“He blew smoke near my face.”

“He was across the street.”

“It travelled.”

Dorcas ignored them both. “Pandora’s group back yet?”

Lily’s expression softened a fraction. “Not yet.”

As if summoned by her name, footsteps sounded outside the door. A moment later, Pandora entered with the graceful weariness of someone who had spent the morning smiling at people who did not deserve it. She was followed by no one at first, then paused and looked back down the hall.

“Donna,” she called softly, then remembered Dorcas was already inside and blinked. “Oh. I’m tired.”

Dorcas straightened. “You all right?”

Pandora nodded and came fully in, removing her gloves one finger at a time. “Nothing yet.”

The room quieted.

Not sadly. Not heavily.

Just enough to make space.

Mary moved a bag off the table and offered Pandora a chair. “No luck?”

Pandora sat, smoothing her skirt. “A few places said no. A few places looked at me and decided no before I spoke. One place wanted experience with machines I do not know. Another asked if I had references.”

Barty made a face. “References?”

Pandora smiled faintly. “I considered giving them Evan.”

Evan, from the wall, said, “I would have been an excellent reference.”

“You would have frightened them.”

“Also useful.”

Dorcas came to stand behind Pandora’s chair, one hand resting briefly on the back of it. “We’ll keep looking tomorrow.”

Mary nodded. “We’ll find the right area. Somewhere will need mending, alterations, hemming. People always need clothes fixed.”

Pandora’s smile returned, soft and eerie and stubborn. “Yes. I’m not worried.”

Regulus studied her for a moment, then said, “You can alter my stage costume if it’s hideous.”

Pandora’s head snapped up.

Sirius looked at Regulus.

Regulus looked away. “For the sake of the cover story.”

Pandora’s whole face lit. “You’re letting me?”

“I’m letting you prevent public embarrassment.”

“That’s a yes.”

“It’s an emergency clause.”

“That’s a yes wearing a hat.”

Fabian gasped. “Not the hat again.”

Mary pointed at him. “No hats.”

Regulus added, “Especially not yours.”

Pandora leaned across the table and caught Regulus’s hand before he could retreat. “I would be honoured to protect Regina’s stage debut.”

Regulus regretted everything instantly.

Barty whispered, “Stage debut.”

James whispered, “Regina’s stage debut.”

Fabian whispered, “Historic.”

Regulus slowly lifted his other hand.

Everyone braced.

He flipped them off again.

James fell backward onto the bed.

“Worth it,” he wheezed.

Lily’s notebook came down on the table with a slap. “Focus. Everyone’s back. We have supplies, possible work for Remus tomorrow, no work yet for Pandora but leads to keep checking, and confirmed work tonight for Sirius and Regulus.”

“Simon and Regina,” Barty said.

Regulus, still holding his gesture, turned it slightly in Barty’s direction.

Barty clutched his heart. “I have been blessed.”

“You have been warned.”

Peter, smiling into his notes, said, “Do we know what time they need to be there?”

Sirius passed him the schedule. “Early evening. Boss said they’ll sort costumes before the crowd comes in.”

Marlene’s eyes gleamed. “We are all going.”

“No,” Lily said instantly.

“Yes,” James said at the same time.

“No,” Lily repeated.

James turned to her. “Evans, this is history.”

“It is work.”

“It is Regulus in a jazz bar.”

“It is still work.”

“It is Regina in a stage costume.”

Lily hesitated.

Regulus watched her betrayal happen in real time.

“Don’t,” he said.

Lily pressed her lips together.

“Lily.”

She looked at the notebook. “We do need people nearby for safety.”

James threw both arms up. “Ha!”

“Not everyone,” Lily said sharply.

James’s arms dropped. “Cruel.”

“Some of us. Nearby, not crowding them, not heckling, not drawing attention, not letting Barty ask about mobsters.”

Barty sat up straighter. “I would never ask directly.”

“That is worse,” Frank said.

Peter looked at the schedule. “I should go. For local context.”

Barty placed a hand over his own chest. “And I should go because Peter is my handler.”

“I’m not your handler.”

“You accepted me.”

“I accepted checking local details.”

“You accepted destiny.”

Remus looked at Lily. “I can go as well. Quietly.”

Marlene raised a hand. “I can go loudly.”

“No,” Lily said.

“At least I’m honest.”

Dorcas considered. “I’ll go. If the boss is favouring Regulus, someone should watch the room who isn’t Sirius.”

Sirius’s eyes narrowed slightly, not at Dorcas, but at the reminder.

Regulus noticed and sighed. “The man thinks Regina is pretty. He is not a dragon.”

“No,” Sirius said. “Dragons are less patronising.”

Mary sat beside Pandora. “I want to go.”

“So do I,” Alice admitted.

Frank nodded. “It may be better not to send too many people.”

Fabian’s hand crept up.

Lily pointed without looking. “No.”

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to ask if you could go.”

“I might have been asking if I could not go.”

Gideon snorted. “You were not.”

Fabian sighed. “Fine, I was asking if I could go.”

Regulus leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “This is not a theatre outing.”

James grinned. “You’re right. It’s a jazz outing.”

“It is my employment.”

“That makes it better.”

Sirius nudged Regulus lightly. “They’re proud.”

“They’re nosy.”

“Both.”

“They want to see me humiliated.”

“Also both.”

The room settled into noisy negotiation.

In the end, Lily divided them again with the authority of someone who had accepted that history was testing her patience more than her magical skill.

Sirius and Regulus would go to the jazz bar as scheduled.

Peter, Barty, Dorcas, and Remus would go nearby as the quiet safety group.

Lily would go too, because Lily trusted no one.

James protested until Lily informed him that his job was to stay at the boarding house with Mary, Alice, Frank, Marlene, Fabian, Gideon, Evan, and Pandora, which made him protest harder until Marlene threatened to sit on him.

Pandora, tragic and luminous, accepted staying behind only because Regulus had promised she could inspect the stage costume afterward if not before.

“I did not promise that,” Regulus said.

“You implied it.”

“I absolutely did not.”

“You offered emergency alteration rights.”

“That is not the same.”

Pandora smiled. “It is in my heart.”

Regulus looked at Evan. “Your sister is rewriting contract law.”

Evan nodded. “She does that.”

Mary began unpacking the food supplies onto the small table: bread, tinned things, fruit, cheese, paper-wrapped slices of something that Fabian insisted had “deep potential,” and a bag of sweets Alice claimed were for everyone but which Frank looked suspiciously proud of finding for her.

The room began to fill with ordinary movement.

Coats came off.

Shoes were kicked under beds.

Maps were folded and unfolded.

Marlene and Dorcas argued about which streets had looked dodgiest.

Barty and Peter wrote two versions of their one-page guide until Lily crossed out three of Barty’s headings, including Useful Lies, Possible Criminal Energy, and Hats: A Cultural Overview.

Sirius sat on the windowsill with the trumpet schedule in hand, reading it for the fifth time.

Regulus pretended not to notice.

Then, because Sirius was Sirius, he looked up and said, “Ready for tonight, Regina?”

Regulus slowly turned from where he stood near Pandora, who was adjusting the shoulder seam of his jacket.

Everyone in the room went quiet again, anticipating another gesture.

Regulus looked at Sirius.

Looked at the schedule.

Looked at the entire ridiculous group of time-lost idiots pretending to be normal in a decade that had no idea what to do with them.

Then he gave Sirius the sweetest smile in the world.

“Of course, Simon.”

Sirius blinked.

Regulus kept smiling.

“That was unsettling,” James whispered.

“It was,” Remus agreed.

Regulus picked up one of the newly bought sweets, unwrapped it delicately, and popped it into his mouth.

Sirius stared. “You’re planning something.”

Regulus crossed the room, skirt swaying, curls brushing his cheek, and patted Sirius once on the shoulder.

“Always.”

Then he walked away.

Sirius watched him go, half delighted and half afraid.

Barty leaned toward Peter and whispered, “Regina is my favourite historical development.”

Peter whispered back, “You shouldn’t say that too loudly.”

Barty looked across the room.

Regulus, without turning, raised one finger.

Barty ducked behind the map.

Peter smiled into his pencil.

And Chicago, entirely unaware that it had just employed two Black brothers under false names and questionable gender presentation, kept rolling on outside the window, bright and loud and waiting for night.

By the time evening folded itself over Chicago, the boarding house had become a war room again.

Not a dignified one.

A war room with bread crumbs on the table, Fabian lying upside down on a bed because he claimed it helped him think, Barty pacing in a circle because he had been forbidden from pacing near the window, and Regulus Black standing in front of the mirror with the expression of a condemned aristocrat being prepared for sacrifice.

Sirius stood behind him, adjusting his cuffs.

Regulus stared at their reflections.

“You’re smiling,” he said coldly.

Sirius looked up, all innocence and polished hair. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

“How odd.”

“Stop it.”

“I can’t help having a naturally pleasant face.”

“You have the face of a man who knows something annoying is about to happen to me.”

Sirius’s grin spread. “That’s still naturally pleasant.”

Pandora was circling Regulus like a seamstress, stylist, and tiny menace rolled into one, checking his jacket, his hair, the fall of the dress, the line of the gloves. It was not the stage costume yet — mercifully. This was still the outfit from earlier, the matched posh-sibling one she had forced them into, now freshly neatened for work.

“You look perfect,” Pandora said.

“I look employable under false pretences.”

“You look perfect.”

“I am going to a jazz bar in the wrong century under a girl’s name to sing with my brother.”

“Yes,” Pandora said, glowing. “And you look perfect.”

Dorcas, seated on the edge of the bed, looked Regulus over and gave a single approving nod. “You do look expensive.”

Regulus gave her a thin look. “Thank you, Donna.”

Dorcas narrowed her eyes.

Regulus smiled sweetly. “Oh, is it only funny when it happens to me?”

Sirius laughed.

Lily checked the schedule for the fourth time. “You need to leave now if you’re going to be there early like the boss asked.”

“We’re going,” Sirius said, tucking the folded paper safely into his jacket pocket. “No need to shove.”

“I am not shoving.”

“You’re spiritually shoving.”

“You need it.”

James stood near the door, practically vibrating. “I still can’t believe we’re not all going.”

“You are staying here,” Lily said.

“I know. I was there when you crushed my dreams.”

“You’ll cope.”

“I might not.”

“You will.”

James looked at Regulus. “Please do something dramatic enough that Barty can describe it badly later.”

Barty, standing beside Peter, placed a hand over his heart. “I describe things beautifully.”

“You described the diner as ‘milkshake cathedral,’” Peter said.

Barty pointed at him. “And you understood me.”

Peter paused. “I did.”

“Exactly.”

Remus, who was one of the few allowed to go later, adjusted his borrowed jacket. “We’ll come after they’ve started, stay out of the way, and bring back anything useful.”

“By useful,” Marlene said, “you mean gossip.”

“Yes,” Dorcas said.

Lily gave them both a look.

Dorcas stared back.

Lily sighed. “Fine. Also gossip.”

Regulus drew on his gloves one finger at a time. “If I hear that any of you made this into a public spectacle—”

Sirius looked at him. “Reggie.”

Regulus turned.

Sirius held out his elbow.

The room quieted in that now-familiar, unbearable way.

Regulus stared at the elbow. Then at Sirius.

Sirius’s expression softened beneath the mischief. “Come on. We’ll be late.”

Regulus took his arm.

“Lead on, Simon.”

Barty made a wounded little sound of delight.

Regulus looked at him.

Barty immediately hid behind Peter.

Sirius led Regulus out before he could commit murder with a glove.

The walk to the jazz bar felt different at night.

Chicago had been loud in daylight, all cars and pavement and people shouting into the air as if the sky had personally wronged them. At night, the city became something slicker, brighter, edged in neon and cigarette smoke. Windows glowed gold. Headlights passed like polished insects. Music bled out of doorways in fragments: saxophone, laughter, a woman’s voice, someone arguing, the clap of a door shutting hard.

Regulus walked at Sirius’s side, hand tucked into his arm, posture immaculate.

Sirius glanced down. “Nervous?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I’m irritated.”

“That’s your version of nervous.”

“No, my version of nervous is poisoning someone quietly.”

“Good to know.”

“Irritation is much louder.”

Sirius smiled. “You’ll be brilliant.”

Regulus looked ahead. “You’ve said that.”

“I’ll say it again.”

“Don’t.”

“You’ll be brilliant.”

“I hope your trumpet falls apart.”

“You don’t.”

“I hope one valve sticks.”

“That’s vicious.”

“I know.”

The jazz bar glowed when they reached it.

By night, it was no longer tired. It had woken up.

The sign above the door cast light across the pavement. Through the windows came warm amber brightness, movement, smoke curling upward, the low sound of voices. The door opened just as they reached it, letting out a burst of laughter and music from someone tuning strings inside.

Sirius paused.

Regulus looked at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That is your lying voice.”

“I’m just thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

Sirius squeezed his arm once. “Whatever they put you in, I’ll make sure you’re all right.”

Regulus blinked.

Then his mouth twisted. “How noble.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re Simon.”

Sirius groaned. “I walked into that.”

“You usually do.”

Inside, the bar was busier than it had been that afternoon, though not full yet. Staff moved quickly between tables. Glasses clinked behind the bar. A few regulars had already claimed their places. The little stage had been cleared properly, piano polished, microphone stand brought forward, trumpet waiting on a stand beside a music stool.

The boss spotted them immediately.

His smile widened.

“Simon. Regina.”

Regulus felt Sirius’s arm tense beneath his hand.

Regulus smiled politely. “Good evening.”

The boss looked him over, approving. “Evening, sweetheart. You’re early.”

Sirius smiled with visible effort. “You asked us to be.”

“That I did.” The boss nodded toward the back. “You’ll change first. Separate rooms. Costumes are waiting.”

Regulus stopped.

Sirius stopped with him.

“Separate rooms?” Sirius said.

The boss gave him an amused look. “Brother, not husband.”

Regulus’s eyes flashed toward Sirius.

Sirius looked like he’d swallowed a lemon whole.

Regulus, because he was a menace and because Sirius had started the entire Regina disaster, touched his brother’s arm delicately and said, “I’ll be perfectly fine, Simon.”

Sirius’s eyes narrowed.

Regulus smiled.

The boss chuckled. “This way.”

They were led through a narrow hallway behind the stage. The walls were lined with old posters, spare cables, instrument cases, and the lingering smell of powder, smoke, and alcohol. A woman with a pin cushion strapped to her wrist bustled past, took one look at Regulus, and stopped.

“This her?”

The boss grinned. “That’s her.”

Regulus’s soul attempted to leave his body.

Sirius looked ready to begin a diplomatic incident.

The woman nodded briskly. “Pretty little thing. Good bones. Come on, honey, no time to waste.”

Regulus slowly turned his head toward Sirius.

Sirius mouthed, I’m sorry.

Regulus’s expression replied, You will be.

Sirius was taken into one room with a dark suit bag hanging on the door. Regulus was pulled into another with the brisk woman and another girl who had a makeup case open on a table.

The door shut.

Sirius stood alone in the small changing room and looked at the suit waiting for him.

It was, annoyingly, excellent.

A sharp jazz suit. Dark, slim, elegant, with a pale shirt and a tie that had just enough flair to belong under stage lights. The jacket fit when he put it on. The trousers sat right. The shoes had been polished. There was even a pocket square.

Sirius turned in the mirror once.

“Oh,” he muttered. “I do like this.”

Then he remembered Regulus was in the other room and immediately felt guilty for enjoying himself.

Only a little.

Mostly he still liked the suit.

In Regulus’s room, there was no such peace.

There was a dress.

A red dress.

A slim, fitted red dress that looked like it had been designed by someone who had heard the word modest once, laughed, and thrown it out a window.

Regulus stared at it.

“No.”

The woman with the pin cushion did not even pause. “Yes.”

“No.”

“You got five minutes.”

“No.”

“Honey, I’ve dressed women with worse tempers and better legs. Arms up.”

Regulus stood there in his underthings, lips parted in pure, silent outrage.

The makeup girl looked him over. “She’s gonna look like a dream.”

Regulus’s eyes moved to her.

She blinked.

“Or a nightmare,” she amended.

The seamstress barked a laugh. “Both sells.”

“There must be another costume,” Regulus said.

“That’s the costume.”

“I am a pianist.”

“You’re a singer now.”

“I am a pianist under duress.”

“You can be under duress in red. Arms up.”

There was, tragically, no time.

No other option.

No escape that did not involve magic, exposure, property damage, or Sirius kicking the door in and ruining the entire job before they had earned a penny.

Regulus lifted his arms.

Five minutes later, he stared into the mirror and considered every decision that had led him to this moment.

The dress fit like scandal.

Red, sleek, narrow through the waist, shaped to him with terrible precision. The neckline was not obscene, technically, but it was elegant in a way that made the entire thing worse. The slit climbed high up one thigh, all the way toward his hip, flashing leg every time he shifted his weight. His curls had been brushed into glossy softness around his face, and smoky makeup had been darkened around his eyes, giving him a sultry, dangerous look that made his grey gaze seem sharper than a blade.

The girl with the makeup brush stood back.

“Gorgeous,” she said.

Regulus looked at her through the mirror.

She lowered the brush. “Scary gorgeous.”

“Better.”

The seamstress tugged the fabric once at his hip and nodded. “Don’t trip. Don’t sit wrong. Don’t breathe too angry or you’ll pop a seam.”

Regulus said, very softly, “I hate this country.”

The seamstress patted his shoulder. “Sure thing, sweetheart. Out you go.”

Regulus stepped into the hallway just as Sirius came out of his room adjusting his tie.

Sirius looked up.

Sirius stopped breathing.

Regulus stood under the dim backstage light in the red dress, one hand braced against the doorframe, smoky eyes narrowed, slit flashing high against his thigh, expression colder than the Black Lake in winter.

Sirius opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

Regulus lifted one finger.

“Do not.”

Sirius raised both hands very slowly.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“I was not.”

“You absolutely were.”

“I value my life too much.”

Regulus stepped closer, heels clicking against the floor. The slit moved with him.

Sirius’s expression went from stunned to violently protective in half a second.

“No,” Sirius said.

Regulus laughed once without humour. “There is no time to change and nothing else to wear.”

“I’ll find something.”

“You’ll get us fired.”

“I’ll steal a tablecloth.”

“You will not.”

Sirius looked toward the stage entrance, jaw tight. “Regulus—”

“Regina,” Regulus corrected in the girl voice, sharp as glass.

Sirius looked back at him.

Regulus held his gaze.

Then, quieter, beneath the voice, “We need the money.”

Sirius exhaled hard through his nose.

Regulus’s face softened just a fraction. “It is fabric.”

“It’s a lot of leg.”

“I have legs.”

“People will look.”

“They already look.”

“I’ll break their hands.”

“You’ll do no such thing unless they touch.”

Sirius’s eyes met his.

Regulus’s tone lowered. “Then you may improvise.”

Sirius held that for a second, then nodded once. “Fine.”

The boss appeared at the end of the hallway and stopped dead.

His grin spread slowly.

“Well,” he said. “Look at that.”

Sirius’s head turned toward him with lethal politeness.

Regulus slid back into the role like slipping on a glove. His posture changed. His chin dipped. The smoky eyes lifted.

“Will this do?” he asked sweetly.

The boss stared like a man who had just discovered profit wearing red silk.

“It’ll do.”

Sirius’s smile was made entirely of knives.

The boss clapped his hands once. “Crowd’s filling. Simon, you start with the band for a warm-up. Regina, I want you singing.”

Regulus blinked. “What song?”

The boss looked at him like the question amused him. “You’re the singer.”

“I was hired as a pianist.”

“You were hired because people are gonna listen when you open your mouth. Give them something lively. Something fun. Not slow and miserable. They don’t come here to cry into their drinks.”

Regulus stared.

There was no music.

No sheet.

No instruction beyond be pretty, be lively, be useful.

Sirius leaned closer and whispered, “Can you make something up?”

Regulus looked at him with deep, personal hatred.

Then he sighed.

A long, resigned, aristocratic sigh that somehow survived the red dress, the smoky makeup, the stage lights, and the fact that someone in the main room had just wolf-whistled at a waitress.

“I can,” he said. “Unfortunately.”

The boss grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

“That is not spirit. That is spite.”

“Spite sells too.”

Regulus looked at Sirius. “If I die, tell Pandora this was her fault.”

“You’re not dying.”

“If I murder someone, tell Mother I was provoked.”

“She’ll ask what they were wearing.”

“Father will ask where you were.”

“I’ll say playing trumpet.”

“He’ll believe that.”

The boss waved them toward the stage.

The room had filled while they were changing.

Tables that had been empty in daylight now held men in suits, women with bright lips and sharp eyes, couples tucked close together, solitary drinkers, regulars, strangers, smoke curling above them all in a silver haze. Glasses caught the light. The bar gleamed. The small band was already settling in: bass, drums, saxophone, and a pianist Regulus did not recognise sitting where Regulus had expected to be.

That made him pause.

The boss leaned in. “You sing first. Piano later.”

Regulus’s smile did not crack.

Inside, he began composing revenge.

Sirius stepped onto the stage first and got a scattering of applause from those who remembered the afternoon audition or simply appreciated a handsome man in a good suit carrying himself like a dare.

Then Regulus stepped into the light.

The bar reacted at once.

Not politely.

Not quietly.

A wave of whistles, cheers, claps, calls, and laughter rose from the tables. Someone shouted something appreciative. Someone slapped the bar. A man near the front leaned back in his chair with his mouth open like a fool.

Sirius’s fingers tightened around his trumpet.

Regulus did not flinch.

Regulus smiled.

Not his own smile.

Regina’s smile.

Slow, red, smoky, amused. A stage smile. A smile with velvet at the edges and a blade underneath.

The cheering got louder.

Near the side entrance, half-hidden by a column, Remus, Lily, Peter, Barty, and Dorcas slipped into the bar.

They had timed it to arrive after the start, quiet and careful, as instructed.

They immediately stopped dead.

Barty’s mouth fell open.

Peter nearly walked into him.

Lily’s eyes went wide.

Dorcas’s brows rose.

Remus, for once in his life, appeared to lose all available language.

Regulus turned slightly under the stage lights, the slit flashing high along his thigh, and lifted one hand in a teasing little wave to the room.

Barty made a sound so high only dogs and possibly James Potter could have heard it from the boarding house.

Lily grabbed his sleeve. “Quiet.”

Peter fumbled beneath his jacket for the tiny charmed object they had prepared before leaving — a button transfigured into a recording charm, small enough to hide in his palm. Dorcas stepped in front of him just enough to block sightlines while he murmured the spell.

Barty whispered, “They need to see this.”

“Keep it steady,” Remus whispered back, sounding faint.

“I am steady,” Peter whispered, though his hand shook once before the charm settled.

Onstage, Sirius had seen them.

He gave the smallest nod.

Then the band began.

The beat came in quick and bright, not quite like anything the decade knew and not quite unlike it either. Regulus had stolen the shape from the air: something with swing in its bones, a teasing pulse, a call-and-answer waiting to happen. The drums snapped. The bass walked. Sirius lifted the trumpet and slid into the opening with a brassy curl of sound that made the crowd clap before the first line.

Regulus stepped to the microphone.

For one dreadful second, he thought of Hogwarts.

The classroom.

The spell circle.

Pandora’s hands in his hair.

Sirius saying Regina.

James laughing.

Lily planning.

Barty and Peter bonding over milkshakes and mobsters.

Then he looked at the crowd and decided, with the calm fury of someone trapped in a red dress with a high slit and no sheet music, that if he had to do this, he was going to make it everyone else’s problem.

He leaned toward the microphone and sang, in that smoky sweet girl voice, “I got chills, they're multiplying.”

The bar went still in one sharp, electric breath.

Then he tilted his head, eyes dragging lazily over the front tables, and added, “And I'm losing control.”

A cheer burst from somewhere near the back.

Sirius answered with a trumpet phrase, bright and wicked.

Regulus’s smile widened. He turned, walking along the edge of the stage, letting the dress move, letting the slit flash, letting them look because looking was easy to control when he decided how much they got to see.

He pointed loosely toward a man at the front table, voice curling around the next words. “’Cause the power you're supplying,” he sang, then leaned closer just enough to make the poor man freeze. “It's electrifying.”

The room erupted.

Barty clapped both hands over his mouth.

Peter’s recording charm caught the way the audience shouted, the way Regulus straightened, the way Sirius’s trumpet laughed under the noise.

Regulus spun away from the edge of the stage before anyone could reach too close. “You better shape up,” he sang, finger raised, all teasing command. “’Cause I need a man.”

A roar of catcalls and whistles hit the stage.

Sirius’s jaw clenched.

Regulus glanced back at him, still smiling, and the look said very clearly: I have this.

Then he turned to the audience again and placed one hand over his own heart, theatrical and wicked. “And my heart is set on you.”

A woman near the bar laughed and shouted, “Get ’em, honey!”

Regulus flashed her a grin. “You better shape up,” he continued, tapping the microphone stand with one finger as he swayed with the beat.

The boss was at the bar, watching with open delight.

He had wanted a singer.

He had not expected this.

Regulus stepped back, eyes smoky beneath the lights. “You better understand,” he sang, voice sweetening for one fragile, false second. “To my heart I must be true.”

Then he looked over his shoulder at Sirius, who brought the trumpet down just enough to meet his eyes.

Regulus smiled.

“Nothin' left, nothin' left for me to do.”

Sirius came in hard with the trumpet, turning the line into a burst of brass and applause.

Regulus grabbed the microphone with both hands and threw himself into the refrain as if he had been born beneath stage lights instead of dragged there by a school project with poor spellwork.

“You're the one that I want, you are the one I want,” he sang, and the crowd shouted back nonsense and praise and laughter. He leaned into the sound, lashes lowered, voice sliding into playful breath. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

Sirius nearly missed his entrance from sheer disbelief.

Regulus pointed to the next table, then the next, choosing people like victims. “The one that I want, you are the one I want,” he sang, smiling when two men at the same table both sat up straighter. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

The drummer laughed audibly and kept time.

Regulus turned toward the whole room, arm sweeping wide. “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

A dozen voices who did not know the song tried to follow anyway.

Regulus, glowing with spite and performance, gave them the little refrain like a gift. “Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

Then he pressed a hand to his chest again, stage-dramatic. “The one I need, the one I need.”

Sirius answered with trumpet.

Regulus threw his head slightly back. “Oh, yes, indeed.”

The applause nearly swallowed the band.

At the side of the room, Lily leaned close to Remus and whispered, “The others are never going to believe this.”

Peter, recording charm steady now, whispered, “They will. I’ve got it.”

Barty’s eyes were enormous. “Regina Black is going to start a riot.”

Dorcas, who had not stopped watching the room around Regulus, murmured, “Maybe. But he knows exactly what he’s doing.”

He did.

That was the worst part.

Regulus knew the second verse needed to build. He knew the crowd liked being teased, liked being commanded, liked the game. He knew the costume was doing half the work before he ever opened his mouth.

So he made the costume work for him.

He leaned one hip against the piano as the band swung into the next section, glancing at the man currently playing it. The pianist gave him a grin and kept going. Regulus tipped his chin, accepting the temporary theft of his rightful instrument with all the grace of someone planning future vengeance.

Then he looked back at the audience and let his voice soften.

“If you're filled with affection,” he sang, eyes landing on a shy-looking man near the front who immediately went crimson, “You're too shy to convey.”

The surrounding table howled.

Regulus raised a hand for silence, got none, and smiled wider.

He took two steps along the stage, the red dress catching every movement. “Meditate in my direction,” he sang, drawing the words out like silk. Then he crooked one finger at the room and practically purred, “Feel your way~”

The bar lost its mind.

Sirius muttered something under his breath that was probably a prayer for patience or a threat against every man in the building.

Regulus heard none of it, or pretended not to.

He snapped back into the rhythm with a clap. “You better shape up,” he sang, pointing sharply toward the front row. “’Cause I need a man.”

Half the front row shouted at once.

Regulus laughed into the microphone, bright and fake and perfect.

Then, because apparently fate wanted Sirius to suffer, the band threw the next beat lower and Regulus repeated, slower, eyes half-lidded, “I need a man.”

Sirius’s trumpet came in too loud.

Regulus glanced back.

Sirius looked innocent.

Regulus turned to the audience, voice rising over the laughter. “Who can keep me satisfied.”

Someone at the bar actually banged a fist on the counter.

The boss laughed, delighted.

At the back of the room, in the deepest pocket of shadow, there was a table no one in the group had paid much attention to.

A man sat there surrounded by others.

Not loud. Not drunk. Not calling out like the rest.

Still.

Watching.

He had the kind of stillness that made the room move around him without touching him. A glass sat untouched near his hand. Men on either side of him leaned in occasionally, murmuring, but his gaze remained fixed on the stage.

On Regulus.

A faint smirk curved his mouth.

No one noticed.

Not Lily, busy watching the crowd.

Not Dorcas, focused on hands too close to the stage.

Not Barty, nearly vibrating through the floorboards.

Not Peter, recording every impossible second.

Not Sirius, watching Regulus and every person within ten feet of him.

Not Regulus, who had become the centre of the room and was using that fact like a weapon.

“You better shape up,” Regulus sang, moving away from the piano, one hand trailing briefly over the top of it. “If you're gonna prove.”

He turned his gaze onto the nearest table with merciless precision. “You better prove.”

The man he looked at sat up so fast his chair squeaked.

Regulus smiled. “That my faith is justified.”

A woman shouted, “Are you sure?”

Regulus seized it instantly, spinning toward her.

“Are you sure?” she called again, laughing.

Regulus leaned into the microphone with a grin sharp enough to cut glass. “Yes, I'm sure down deep inside.”

The room cheered like she had been planted there just for him.

She had not.

That made it better.

Sirius’s trumpet lifted the refrain again and the crowd clapped along now, uneven but enthusiastic, drunk on the rhythm and the red-dressed singer who kept making them feel as if every line was aimed directly at them.

Regulus sang, “You're the one that I want, you are the one I want,” and the room tried to echo the shape of it. He laughed through the little breathy break, “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

Sirius stepped closer, trumpet gleaming under the stage lights, and played a riff between lines.

Regulus turned toward him, making the sibling act look like something choreographed, something professional, something that had not been thrown together by panic and spite.

“The one that I want, you are the one I want,” he sang, then tipped his head toward Sirius as if daring him to answer. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

Sirius answered in brass.

Regulus rolled his eyes theatrically for the audience, who laughed and clapped.

“The one that I want, you are the one I want,” Regulus sang, moving toward the other side of the stage. “Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

He rested one hand at his own waist, red fabric catching in the light. “The one I need.”

The band dropped for him.

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

The boss turned to one of the staff and said something that made the man nod quickly and vanish behind the bar.

Sirius saw movement.

Dorcas saw Sirius see it.

Lily saw Dorcas tense and followed the line.

Nothing happened.

Not yet.

The song kept rolling, brighter now, faster, alive under Regulus’s feet. The pianist at the stage bench suddenly shifted, taking over more fully with the band, and the boss gestured toward Regulus.

Move.

Regulus saw it.

For one second, his eyes flashed murder.

Then he smiled.

Fine.

If they wanted Regina off the stage, they could suffer Regina up close.

The pianist slid fully into the piano part. Regulus lifted the microphone from the stand, its cord trailing behind him, and stepped down from the stage.

The bar went feral.

Sirius’s head snapped up.

Regulus did not look back.

He walked into the room like he owned every inch of it.

“The one that I want,” he sang, passing the first table with a sway that made three people lean after him at once. “You are the one I want.”

He brushed past a chair, spinning neatly out of reach when a hand lifted too close.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

The man laughed and lifted both hands in surrender.

Regulus turned to another table, ruffled a man’s hair with quick, teasing fingers before the man could do more than stare. “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The man’s friends roared.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

Regulus moved on before anyone could catch him, quick and light, red dress flashing at the slit, heels clicking, microphone cord following like a tail.

At the side, Barty whispered, “He’s going to get himself kidnapped.”

Dorcas muttered, “He’s moving too fast.”

Lily whispered, “Keep filming.”

Peter’s hand had gone white around the charm. “I am.”

Regulus reached a table near the centre where a young man in suspenders was watching him with helpless awe.

Regulus stopped in front of him.

The man’s eyes widened.

Regulus tipped his chin up with one finger, smoky eyes lowering as he sang, “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The man leaned forward.

Too far.

Regulus withdrew his hand and spun away just as the man, utterly lost, grinning dopily like his brain had unplugged from the wall, leaned after him.

His chair tipped.

For one glorious second, he hovered.

Then he fell face-first onto the floor.

The bar detonated.

People shouted, laughed, clapped, stamped their feet. His friends howled as they hauled him up. He appeared completely unharmed and entirely lovestruck, hair mussed, grin stupid, dignity dead.

Regulus, without missing a beat, looked back over his shoulder and sang sweetly, “Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

Sirius nearly dropped the trumpet laughing.

Regulus continued through the chaos, lifting his free hand as if accepting tribute. “The one I need,” he sang, turning on one heel near another table.

A woman caught his hand and spun him once.

Regulus allowed exactly one spin, skirt flaring, red flashing beneath the lights, then slipped free with practised grace.

“Oh, yes, indeed, ooh, ooh.”

He moved again, and another customer caught his hand, leading him two steps in a playful little dance before Regulus turned it against him, spun beneath his arm, and left him standing there applauding like an idiot.

Sirius watched with strained pride and escalating stress.

The band loved it.

The crowd loved it.

The boss loved it most of all.

And in the back, the shadowed man watched without clapping, his smirk deepening as Regulus moved through the room like flame learning how to flirt.

Regulus made his way back toward the stage as the refrain came around again. His voice did not shake. If anything, it had grown stronger, buoyed by outrage and adrenaline and the horrifying discovery that being good at something did not require wanting to do it.

He climbed back onto the stage with Sirius’s hand appearing instantly to help him up.

This time, he took it.

Only because the slit was a hazard.

Mostly.

Sirius leaned in as Regulus returned the microphone to the stand. “Having fun?”

Regulus smiled at the audience and whispered through his teeth, “I hate everyone.”

“You’re glowing.”

“That’s stage lighting.”

“You made a man fall on his face.”

“He deserved it.”

“He did.”

Regulus turned back to the room and let the song lift one last time.

“You're the one that I want, you are the one I want,” he sang, and now half the bar shouted along in broken rhythm, not knowing the tune properly but knowing enough to chase it. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

Sirius came in with trumpet between phrases, bright and wild.

“The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The drums hit harder.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

The pianist grinned up at Regulus as he played.

“The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

Regulus leaned into the last of it, eyes sweeping the room, catching every face and giving none of them anything real.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

The band dropped low.

Regulus held the room in one gloved hand.

“The one I need,” he sang, softer.

Then, with a sharp little smile, “Oh, yes, indeed.”

The room erupted.

But the band didn’t stop. The crowd clapped them onward, the boss shouting something encouraging, Sirius throwing Regulus a look that asked if he could keep going.

Regulus hated that the answer was yes.

So he went again, because the song had become easy now, because repetition made the crowd feel clever, because a refrain was a hook and Regulus knew exactly how to set one.

“You're the one that I want, you are the one I want,” he sang again, laughing into the first breath when the front tables shouted with him. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

The man who had fallen off his chair was now standing, red-faced, bowing dramatically to the stage.

Regulus pointed at him. “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The crowd screamed.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

Sirius nearly had to turn away again.

Regulus moved to the other side of the stage, voice teasing, “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

He let the “Ooh ooh, ooh” roll out playful and bright, then snapped his fingers toward the drummer.

The band obeyed.

“The one I need,” he sang, and this time the audience answered with noise before he even finished.

“Oh, yes, indeed, ooh, ooh.”

Barty had one hand over his mouth and one hand gripping Peter’s sleeve.

Peter whispered, “You’re pulling my jacket.”

“I’m emotionally compromised.”

“Quietly.”

“I’m trying.”

Lily was staring at Regulus with the expression of someone mentally rewriting every assumption she had ever held about him.

Remus murmured, “James is going to explode.”

Dorcas nodded. “Pandora too.”

“Pandora might faint.”

“Pandora will start sewing.”

Onstage, Regulus gave them one final round because the crowd refused to let go, because the boss was practically glowing, because Sirius had somehow become part of the rhythm beside him and because, if Regulus had to humiliate himself for money, he was going to earn every cent in the room.

“You're the one that I want, you are the one I want,” he sang, one hand sliding down the microphone stand. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

The room clapped in time now, feet stamping, glasses rattling.

“The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

He laughed through the breath, smoky-eyed and red-mouthed and entirely false.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

Sirius blew one last brilliant run, and Regulus turned toward him with a grin that was almost real.

“The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The band built.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

Regulus held the final pause.

The whole room seemed to lean toward him.

“The one I need,” he sang.

Then the last line, sweet and triumphant: “Oh, yes, indeed.”

The band crashed to a finish.

For one second, silence.

Then the bar exploded so loudly it felt as if the walls might shake loose.

People stood. People clapped. People shouted. Someone whistled sharp enough to pierce glass. The man who had fallen off the chair threw money toward the stage and nearly fell again doing it. More bills followed, fluttering onto the boards near Regulus’s shoes.

Regulus stared down at the tips.

Then at Sirius.

Sirius stared back.

Barty whispered, “They are rich.”

Peter whispered, “They are temporarily solvent.”

Lily whispered, “Keep filming.”

“I am,” Peter whispered.

Regulus bent slightly to pick up one of the bills, realised the dress made that a strategic nightmare, and stopped.

Sirius, with the reflexes of a protective brother and the survival instincts of someone who enjoyed living, stepped in and collected the nearest tips himself.

The crowd cheered that too.

Regulus gave them a demure little wave.

Sirius muttered, “You are never allowed near James with this much power.”

Regulus murmured, “James would have fainted by now.”

“James would have proposed on behalf of the room.”

“I would have said no.”

“You said that very quickly.”

“I’ve met Potter.”

The first number made them the room’s favourite.

The rest of the night made them legend.

They played set after set until the hours blurred into smoke and brass and applause. Sirius found his footing quickly, turning the trumpet into a second voice, sometimes wild, sometimes smooth, always too charming for his own good. Regulus played piano later when the other man stepped aside, and the room discovered that Regina Black did not only sing and flirt and make fools fall off chairs; she could make a piano behave like it had been waiting for her all its life.

He sang again, though he complained every time the boss asked.

The complaining made the boss laugh.

The singing made customers throw money.

The flirting made Sirius age ten years in one evening.

Regulus stayed untouchable through all of it.

Hands reached; he slipped away.

Men leaned; he spun out of reach.

Women called; he winked back.

A customer tried to take both his hands and lead him into a dance near the tables, and Regulus let himself be turned once, twice, then reversed the movement so neatly that the customer ended up dizzy, laughing, and applauding him.

Every time he returned to the stage, Sirius was there.

Every time Sirius played too loudly, Regulus cut him a look.

Every time Regulus leaned too close to the crowd, Sirius’s trumpet came in like a warning shot wrapped in music.

And still, in the back, the shadowed figure watched.

Surrounded.

Silent.

Smirking.

No one noticed.

Not even when one of the men beside him leaned in and murmured something that made his eyes narrow briefly before returning to Regulus.

Not even when he lifted his glass at last, not to drink, but as if making a private toast.

By closing time, Regulus’s feet hurt, Sirius’s mouth ached from playing, and the stage was littered with more tips than either of them had expected to see in a week.

The boss was almost giddy.

He counted their pay at the bar, then added a bonus without being asked.

Sirius watched the money with poorly concealed astonishment.

Regulus stood beside him in the red dress, smoky makeup softened at the edges after hours under hot lights, curls slightly mussed, looking tired, glittering, and deeply dangerous.

The boss slid the cash across. “You two come back tomorrow.”

Sirius took it. “That was the plan.”

“Same time. Costumes stay with you. Wear ’em in. Crowd’ll remember.”

Regulus’s eyes closed.

Sirius winced.

The boss looked at Regulus with that same open favour. “You especially. They loved you, sweetheart.”

Regulus opened his eyes and smiled like a knife hidden in cream. “How fortunate.”

“Tips are yours too.” The boss nodded toward the pile. “Quite the haul.”

Sirius gathered them carefully, folding bills and coins into separate pockets. “We noticed.”

The boss leaned on the bar. “You keep singing like that, Regina, and this place’ll be packed by the weekend.”

Regulus’s smile did not move. “Then I suppose I had better rest my voice.”

The boss laughed, delighted by anything he said now. “Go on, then. Get home safe. Simon, keep an eye on your sister.”

Sirius’s smile sharpened. “Always.”

Regulus slid his gloved hand into Sirius’s arm before Sirius could offer.

The boss noticed.

He liked that too.

Regulus hated him a little for it.

They stepped out of the jazz bar into the cool night with money hidden in Sirius’s jacket, tips tucked into Regulus’s little stage purse, and the dreadful knowledge that they had to wear these costumes again.

The others were waiting across the street under the softened glow of a streetlamp.

Lily, Remus, Peter, Barty, and Dorcas had stayed until the end, careful and watchful. In their arms were Sirius and Regulus’s earlier clothes, neatly folded, because the club had insisted the costumes were theirs now and the siblings had not been sent back to change.

Barty saw them first.

He made no sound.

This was more alarming than any sound he could have made.

He simply stared at Regulus in the red dress with both hands pressed over his mouth, eyes huge, shoulders shaking violently.

Peter stood beside him, clutching the recording charm like holy evidence.

Remus looked like he had just survived a natural disaster.

Lily looked like she was deciding whether to scold Regulus or applaud him.

Dorcas looked Regulus up and down once and said, “Well.”

Regulus lifted his chin. “Not one word.”

Barty made a muffled noise.

Regulus pointed. “Especially not from you.”

Barty nodded rapidly, still muffled, definitely lying.

Sirius held up the money. “We got paid.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “That much?”

“This is just the boss’s pay,” Sirius said. Then he patted another pocket. “Tips.”

Dorcas’s brows rose properly this time. “Tips?”

Regulus opened the tiny purse and showed them.

For a second, no one spoke.

Then Lily whispered, “Bloody hell.”

Regulus smiled serenely. “My humiliation is lucrative.”

Barty finally removed his hands from his mouth. “You made a man fall on his face.”

Regulus looked at him. “He leaned.”

“He fell out of his chair.”

“He overcommitted.”

Peter nodded solemnly. “That is accurate.”

Remus rubbed his forehead. “James is going to be unbearable.”

“James?” Dorcas said. “Pandora is going to ascend.”

Lily held out Regulus’s earlier outfit. “You have to wear that back?”

Regulus looked down at the red dress.

The slit shifted in the night air.

“Yes,” he said, deadpan. “Apparently the crowd will remember.”

Barty turned away and silently shook with laughter.

Sirius took his own folded clothes from Remus and tucked them under one arm. “They’re making us wear these for work from now on.”

Dorcas looked at Sirius’s suit. “Yours is fine.”

“Mine is excellent,” Sirius admitted.

Regulus looked at him.

Sirius cleared his throat. “But in solidarity, I object.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I object emotionally.”

“You admired yourself in the mirror.”

“I looked good.”

“You still do.”

Sirius’s grin flashed. “Thanks, Reggie.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

Lily started walking. “Back to the boarding house. Quietly. No discussing the performance where people can hear.”

Barty leaned toward Peter as they fell into step. “We have it recorded.”

Peter nodded, eyes bright. “The others can watch.”

Regulus stopped walking.

Everyone else stopped too.

He turned very slowly.

Peter froze.

Barty stepped behind him immediately, proving both cowardice and loyalty at once.

Regulus’s voice became dangerously soft. “You filmed it?”

Lily lifted her chin. “For safety. And evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“That the job went well.”

Dorcas added, “And so the others could see later.”

Regulus stared at all of them.

Sirius leaned down slightly. “To be fair, they stayed at the boarding house as instructed.”

“That does not make this better.”

“It kind of does.”

“It does not.”

Barty whispered from behind Peter, “It was historically necessary.”

Regulus’s eyes snapped to him.

Barty hid fully.

Peter, brave in the doomed way of small animals and historians, held up the charm. “It’s a very good recording.”

Regulus stared.

Then, with unbearable dignity, he resumed walking.

“Fine,” he said.

Sirius blinked. “Fine?”

Regulus looked ahead, red dress flashing with each step, stage makeup smoky beneath the streetlamp, money tucked into his purse like proof of victory.

“If they are going to laugh,” he said, “they can do it while looking at how much money I made.”

Sirius laughed.

Lily smiled despite herself.

Dorcas shook her head.

Barty whispered, “Regina Black, breadwinner.”

Regulus did not turn around.

He simply raised one gloved hand and flipped him off over his shoulder.

Peter’s recording charm caught that too.

The boarding house was supposed to be quiet after midnight.

That, at least, was the theory.

The sort of theory held by people who had never put James Potter, Fabian Prewett, Gideon Prewett, Marlene McKinnon, Pandora Rosier, Evan Rosier, Mary Macdonald, Alice Fortescue, and Frank Longbottom into four rented rooms with nothing to do except wait for news of their friends’ first illegal-adjacent jazz-bar employment in 1950s Chicago.

By the time the key turned in the lock downstairs, they had all heard it.

Every head in the main room snapped toward the door.

James launched himself upright so fast he nearly knocked over a lamp.

“They’re back.”

Pandora was already standing.

Fabian rolled off the bed.

Gideon caught him by the back of his shirt without looking, because this had apparently become routine.

Marlene moved to the doorway first, then stopped herself and looked back at Lily’s empty chair as if the ghost of Lily Evans might appear to tell her not to stampede.

Mary, who had been sorting the last of the food into careful little piles, lifted both brows. “Nobody run at them.”

James had already taken two steps.

Mary pointed. “James.”

He froze. “I wasn’t running.”

“You were emotionally sprinting.”

“I’m full of questions.”

“Contain them.”

“I cannot.”

Alice, sitting beside Frank on the edge of the bed, smiled anxiously. “What if it went badly?”

Evan, leaned against the wall with his arms folded, looked toward the hall. “It didn’t.”

Pandora turned to him. “How do you know?”

“Barty would be louder if it went badly.”

That was, unfortunately, a very solid point.

The first voice they heard on the stairs was Barty’s, low and vibrating with the kind of energy that meant he had been threatened into silence and was physically suffering from it.

“I am telling you, it was art.”

Then Peter, quieter but bright with excitement, said, “You have to wait until we’re inside.”

“I have waited all the way back.”

“You whispered the entire time.”

“That was restraint.”

Lily’s voice followed. “It was not.”

Then Sirius laughed.

That was enough to unleash the room.

The door opened.

James immediately shouted, “How did it go?”

Fabian shouted, “Did anyone throw bottles?”

Gideon shouted, “Did you get paid?”

Marlene shouted, “Did Regulus actually sing?”

Pandora shouted, “What was the costume?”

Mary shouted, “Is everyone alive?”

Alice shouted, “Was it frightening?”

Frank shouted, “Did you need help?”

Evan, not shouting, simply said, “Where is he?”

Then the group entered.

Lily came in first, tired but smug in the exhausted way of someone who had witnessed history and survived Barty’s commentary about it. Remus followed behind her with Sirius’s earlier clothes folded over one arm. Dorcas came next, eyes sharp and amused, carrying Regulus’s earlier outfit carefully because Pandora would have murdered anyone who wrinkled it. Peter came in clutching the little recording charm in both hands like it was sacred evidence. Barty slipped in beside him, barely holding himself together.

Then Sirius stepped through in his stage suit, trumpet case under one arm, hair a little loose from the evening, looking unfairly handsome and utterly pleased with himself.

And behind him came Regulus.

The room died.

Not quieted.

Died.

Regulus Black stood in the doorway wearing the red dress.

The fitted, narrow, molten red dress with the slit cut high up one thigh, the fabric catching the lamplight like something poured rather than sewn. The smoky makeup around his eyes had blurred slightly at the edges after hours beneath hot stage lights, making his grey gaze look darker, softer, more dangerous. His curls were mussed just enough to look intentional. His lips still held a trace of colour. The little stage purse hung from one wrist, heavy with tips. His heels clicked once against the floorboards as he stepped inside.

He looked exhausted.

He looked furious.

He looked expensive.

He looked, devastatingly, like he had walked out of a scandal and brought half the room’s dignity with him.

For three seconds, nobody breathed.

Then James Potter made a noise.

Not a word.

Not even a proper sound.

A tiny, strangled, wounded little thing that escaped him against his will.

Regulus’s eyes slid to him.

James went bright red.

“Oh,” Fabian said faintly.

Gideon swallowed.

Evan had gone very still against the wall.

Very, very still.

His eyes moved once, from Regulus’s face to the dress to the slit to the heels to the smoky makeup, then back to Regulus’s eyes with the expression of a man who had just had an internal door kicked open.

Mary’s mouth opened.

Closed.

Opened again.

Alice’s hands were pressed to her cheeks.

Frank had turned an alarming shade of pink and was staring very respectfully at the ceiling.

Marlene looked from Regulus to Sirius, then back to Regulus, then said, “Holy shit.”

Pandora did not speak.

Pandora placed both hands over her heart and stared like a painter glimpsing the divine after years of sketching badly lit fruit.

Regulus, after letting the silence ripen to its full, humiliating potential, lifted his chin.

“If anyone says one word,” he said in his normal voice, low and lethal, “I will burn this house down.”

James immediately said, “You look—”

Sirius slapped a hand over James’s mouth.

“Helpful big brother intervention,” Sirius said cheerfully.

James mumbled behind his palm.

Regulus narrowed his eyes. “What did he say?”

Sirius did not remove his hand. “Nothing useful.”

James nodded frantically.

It was unclear whether he meant yes, nothing useful, or yes, I was about to say something incredibly stupid and possibly life-ending.

Fabian lifted a hand slowly.

Regulus looked at him.

Fabian lowered it.

Gideon, who had been staring at a spot somewhere near Regulus’s shoulder with great determination and failing spectacularly, cleared his throat. “So the costume was... red.”

Regulus’s smile became terrifying. “Excellent observation, Gideon.”

Gideon shut up.

Pandora finally inhaled.

It was a dangerous sound.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Regulus turned on her immediately. “No.”

“Regulus.”

“No.”

“Regina.”

“No.”

“You look—”

“No.”

“—like a star.”

The room went softer for half a second, because Pandora said it with such open wonder that even Regulus’s outrage faltered.

Only half a second.

Then Barty exploded.

“He was incredible.”

Regulus closed his eyes.

Barty pushed past Sirius and Peter, hands flying, words already tumbling out too fast. “No, no, none of you understand, you think you understand because you’re looking at him and you’re all having whatever crisis that is—”

James made a muffled protest behind Sirius’s hand.

Fabian pointed at himself. “I am not having a crisis.”

Gideon looked at him.

Fabian paused.

“I’m having a small crisis.”

Evan said nothing.

Which, somehow, said far more.

Barty continued, nearly vibrating through the floor. “But the performance. The performance. He walks out, right, in that, and the whole bar just loses its mind. Like properly. Cheering. Whistling. Men forgetting how bones work. Women shouting. The boss looking like he’d found buried treasure. Sirius looking like he was about to duel the entire customer base.”

“I was not,” Sirius said.

Dorcas gave him a look.

Sirius amended, “Not the entire customer base.”

Regulus walked deeper into the room, heels clicking, and dropped into a chair with as much dignity as one could manage in a dress slit to the hip. “I made us money.”

That seemed to remind everyone that money existed.

Sirius pulled folded bills from his inner jacket pocket and set them on the table.

Then Regulus opened the little purse and tipped out the tips.

The room stared again.

This time at the money.

Frank’s eyes widened. “That is... a lot.”

Mary stepped closer. “That is a ridiculous amount.”

Lily nodded grimly. “It is more than ridiculous.”

James finally pried Sirius’s hand off his mouth. “You made that singing?”

Regulus looked at him. “No, Potter. I robbed the bank between verses.”

James, still red, said, “Right. Sorry.”

“You went red again.”

“I did not.”

“You are the colour of a tomato with glasses.”

Marlene snorted.

James covered his face. “I’m fine.”

“You look faint,” Remus said.

“I’m experiencing history.”

“You’re experiencing attraction,” Fabian said, then immediately realised he had said that out loud.

Every head turned to him.

Fabian froze.

Gideon stared at his brother in pure horror.

Fabian slowly lifted both hands. “I meant James.”

James pointed at him. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you are.”

“You are!”

“I said it first!”

“That doesn’t make it better!”

Gideon coughed. “For the record, I’m also possibly experiencing history.”

Regulus stared at him.

Gideon immediately examined the floor.

Sirius stepped in front of Regulus with a delighted and protective grin. “This is marvellous.”

Regulus looked up at him. “Is it?”

“Yes. Everyone’s terrified and flustered.”

“I noticed.”

“You’re powerful.”

“I know.”

Evan still had not spoken.

Dorcas noticed. Then Mary noticed Dorcas noticing. Then Alice noticed both of them noticing, and in the delicate web of room-wide attention, everyone somehow became aware that Evan Rosier was standing far too still by the wall, eyes fixed on Regulus like Regulus had transformed into a problem he wanted very badly to solve and absolutely should not touch.

Regulus’s gaze shifted to him.

Evan blinked once.

His voice, when it came, was lower than usual. “You got hired.”

Regulus lifted one eyebrow. “Yes.”

“And paid.”

“Yes.”

“And tips.”

“Obviously.”

Evan’s eyes flicked, traitorously, to the dress.

Regulus’s eyebrow climbed higher.

Evan looked back at his face immediately. “Red suits you.”

The room inhaled as one.

Barty turned slowly to Peter.

Peter’s eyes widened.

James made another strangled sound.

Pandora looked like she had just been handed a subplot wrapped in ribbon.

Regulus’s expression did not change, but something in his eyes sharpened, amused and dangerous.

“Does it?” he asked, and the girl voice slipped in at the edges.

Evan’s throat moved.

Sirius’s head whipped toward Regulus. “Don’t weaponise it at Evan.”

Regulus looked at his brother, all innocence and smoky eyes. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I am sitting.”

“You’re sitting maliciously.”

Marlene muttered, “He is, actually.”

Evan folded his arms tighter. “I stand by what I said.”

Regulus smiled.

Evan looked away first.

Barty whispered, “Oh, he’s dead.”

Peter whispered, “Which one?”

“Yes.”

Lily, perhaps sensing that if she did not regain control immediately the entire boarding house would become a series of romantic accidents and homicide threats, clapped her hands once.

“Recording,” she said.

Everyone snapped toward Peter.

Peter straightened, clutching the charm. “Right. Yes. I recorded most of the first number and some of the later sets.”

Regulus turned his head slowly.

Peter flinched but held his ground with surprising bravery. “For safety. And so the others could see, since they stayed here as instructed.”

“I heard this excuse already.”

“It remains true.”

Barty bounced on his heels. “Show them. Show them now. Please. I have been holding this in for an entire walk and it has damaged me.”

“You were whispering the whole way,” Lily said.

“I was leaking.”

Regulus leaned back in the chair. “Fine.”

Everyone looked at him.

He crossed one leg over the other, the slit falling open enough that James made a tiny choking sound and turned away so fast he nearly hit Fabian.

Regulus smirked. “Show them.”

Sirius’s eyes narrowed. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I made money.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I’m reframing.”

Peter placed the charmed button on the table.

The room crowded around, though Sirius immediately placed himself beside Regulus’s chair like a guard dog in a jazz suit. Dorcas leaned against the wall with the best angle. Lily sat near the table, notebook abandoned. Barty all but perched on Peter’s shoulder. Pandora knelt on the floor in front, hands clasped. James, Fabian, and Gideon stayed standing, as if sitting down would make their various crises worse. Evan remained near the wall, though his attention did not move from the charm.

Peter tapped it once with his wand.

Light shimmered up from the button.

A tiny projected image bloomed in the air above the table, smoky and gold-edged, the sound crackling softly at first before settling.

The jazz bar appeared.

The stage.

Sirius in his suit.

Then Regulus in red.

The room saw him step into the light.

And for the second time that night, everyone froze.

Except now they also heard the bar.

The recording caught it all more clearly than those inside the club had realised in the moment: the sudden swell of whistles, cheers, clapping hands, glasses banging on tabletops, a woman laughing loudly, someone near the front shouting, “There she is!”

Another voice called, “Look at those legs!”

Sirius’s head snapped toward the projection even though the moment had already passed.

Regulus’s eyes narrowed. “I missed that one.”

Sirius said, “I did not.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I sensed it.”

Mary leaned closer to the projection, eyes wide. “The noise.”

Alice whispered, “They loved you before you even sang.”

Regulus lifted his chin. “They were easily led.”

James, watching projected-Regulus smile at the room, whispered, “Oh my god.”

Marlene looked at him. “You all right?”

“No.”

“Good.”

On the projection, Regulus leaned toward the microphone.

His voice came out smoky, bright, sweet, and impossible.

“I got chills, they're multiplying,” projected-Regulus sang.

The room in the boarding house erupted.

James shouted, “That is not your voice!”

Regulus said, “It clearly is.”

Fabian sat down on the bed hard. “Oh, I am in trouble.”

Gideon nodded faintly. “Same.”

Frank stared at the ceiling again. “I feel like I should be elsewhere.”

Alice patted his knee without taking her eyes off the projection.

Evan’s expression became unreadable, which only made it worse.

The recording continued.

Projected-Regulus tilted his head, lashes lowered. “And I'm losing control.”

The recorded bar answered with whistles and a man yelling, “Lose it over here, doll!”

“Doll?” Regulus said, with the calm of someone adding a name to a death list.

Sirius leaned closer to the projection. “Which table was that?”

Dorcas said, “You cannot retroactively fight a recording.”

“I can try.”

Projected-Sirius answered with trumpet, bright and brilliant.

James pointed. “Padfoot, you were good.”

Sirius grinned. “I know.”

“You were annoyingly good.”

“I know that too.”

The recording moved on.

Projected-Regulus glided along the stage. “’Cause the power you're supplying,” he sang, leaning down toward a table just enough to make the men there collectively malfunction. “It's electrifying.”

The recorded crowd howled.

One clear voice shouted, “I’ll supply anything you want!”

Regulus sat up very slowly.

Sirius’s smile vanished.

Remus murmured, “Ah.”

Barty whispered, “I did not hear that at the time.”

“Neither did I,” Dorcas said, tone sharpening.

Regulus looked profoundly unimpressed. “Disgusting.”

Sirius muttered, “Should’ve brought a knife.”

Lily gave him a look.

“A historically accurate knife.”

“No.”

Projected-Regulus spun away, laughing into the song, and it was so effortless, so flirtatious, so unlike the Regulus they knew from cold corridors and cutting remarks, that the room seemed to collectively forget how to speak.

“You better shape up,” the projection sang. “’Cause I need a man.”

The recorded bar roared.

Someone shouted, “Right here, sweetheart!”

Another voice yelled, “Pick me!”

A third, louder and drunker, called, “I’m shaped up enough!”

Barty collapsed sideways into Peter.

Peter, still holding the projection steady, squeaked, “Careful.”

Pandora had both hands over her mouth. Her eyes were shining with wicked joy.

Marlene stared openly. “I did not know you could flirt.”

Regulus examined his nails. “I can do many things.”

“You flirt like a weapon.”

“Most things are weapons if you’re good enough.”

James, still red, nodded too quickly. “That’s true.”

Lily looked at him.

James stopped nodding.

Projected-Regulus placed a hand to his heart. “And my heart is set on you.”

The recorded woman near the bar shouted, “Break mine too, honey!”

Mary burst out laughing.

Regulus looked briefly pleased. “I liked her.”

“You better shape up,” the projection continued.

A man yelled, “I will!”

Projected-Regulus’s smile sharpened as if he had heard, even though he had not. “You better understand.”

The whole group watched him soften his voice.

“To my heart I must be true.”

The room went strangely silent at that.

Not because it was sad.

It wasn’t.

But because the performance was good.

Too good to dismiss as a joke.

There was Regulus Black in a red dress in a jazz bar in 1950s Chicago, using a false voice and a false name and somehow making the falsehood look like power.

Sirius watched the projection with a softer expression than before.

The projected Regulus glanced back at projected Sirius as he sang, “Nothin' left, nothin' left for me to do.”

Sirius’s trumpet answered.

Pandora whispered, “You two looked like you’d done it for years.”

Sirius glanced down at Regulus. “We should form a band.”

“No.”

“A sibling act.”

“No.”

“Simon and Regina.”

“I will swallow glass.”

The refrain hit.

Projected-Regulus grabbed the microphone and sang, “You're the one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The recorded crowd shouted around him.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

The real room heard someone whistle sharply, then a voice yell, “Sing it to me, red!”

Fabian, still seated, put his head in his hands. “Red.”

Gideon patted his shoulder, equally doomed. “There, there.”

Projected-Regulus pointed from table to table. “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The recorded room answered with claps.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

James whispered, “I’m not into Regulus. I’m not into Regulus. I’m not into Regulus.”

Mary leaned over. “Saying it three times doesn’t banish it.”

James looked at her, horrified. “Mary.”

“You are bright scarlet.”

“I’m warm.”

“It’s winter in the past.”

“I’m historically warm.”

Regulus smiled slowly.

James saw it and nearly fell over.

Projected-Regulus continued, “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

“Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

“The one I need, the one I need.”

A man in the recording shouted, “Need me, baby!”

Sirius immediately said, “No.”

Regulus laughed, properly this time, sharp and delighted. “You’re answering the recording.”

“I object across time.”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” projected-Regulus sang, and the recorded applause crashed over the line.

Pandora turned, still kneeling, to stare at the real Regulus with reverence. “You’re never allowed to say you can’t perform again.”

“I never said I couldn’t.”

“You acted like it.”

“I said I did not want to.”

“That is different.”

“Exactly.”

Barty pointed at him. “He weaponised reluctance.”

Peter nodded seriously. “That is one of his main skills.”

Regulus glanced at him.

Peter flushed. “Sorry.”

“No. Continue being correct.”

Peter looked pleased.

The recording shifted into the second verse.

Projected-Regulus leaned against the piano, all red dress and smoky eyes. “If you're filled with affection,” he sang toward the shy man near the front, “You're too shy to convey.”

The recorded table exploded with laughter and someone shouted, “He ain’t shy now!”

The shy man’s projected face went crimson.

Alice made a tiny sympathetic noise. “Oh, bless him.”

Marlene laughed. “He looks like he’s about to pass out.”

“So did James five minutes ago,” Mary said.

James pointed at her. “You are being very loud tonight.”

“I’m comfortable with truth.”

Projected-Regulus raised one hand. “Meditate in my direction.”

A woman in the recording shouted, “Gladly!”

Another voice called, “I’m meditating!”

Regulus smiled at that. “Good taste.”

Then projected-Regulus crooked a finger at the room and purred, “Feel your way~”

The boarding house erupted louder than the recorded bar.

James made a noise and walked straight into the wall.

Not hard.

Enough.

Fabian slid farther down the bed.

Gideon turned away and laughed into his hand.

Evan shut his eyes for one long moment.

Dorcas looked at Evan and murmured, “You alive?”

“No,” Evan said.

Everyone heard.

Regulus’s head turned.

Evan opened his eyes.

For one second, neither of them spoke.

Then Sirius stepped slightly forward with a bright smile. “I am still here.”

Evan looked at him. “I noticed.”

“Good.”

Regulus’s lips curled. “Protective big brother?”

“Extremely.”

The projection kept singing.

“You better shape up,” projected-Regulus commanded. “’Cause I need a man.”

Recorded voices shouted over one another:

“Over here!”

“Name it, honey!”

“I got two hands and a heartbeat!”

“I’ll shape up for you!”

“Let me buy you a drink!”

Sirius looked murderous.

Lily looked appalled and fascinated.

Mary grimaced. “Men really do just say things.”

Dorcas said, “Across every decade.”

Regulus, however, looked faintly bored. “Unoriginal.”

“You’re reviewing catcalls now?” Remus asked.

“They lack poetry.”

Projected-Regulus lowered his voice. “I need a man.”

The real room made several sounds at once.

James sat down.

Fabian sat beside him.

Gideon sat beside Fabian.

Frank, still pink, said, “Would anyone like water?”

Alice patted his hand. “That might be you, sweetheart.”

Frank nodded. “Probably.”

Projected-Regulus sang, “Who can keep me satisfied.”

The recorded bar became thunder.

A voice near the recording charm shouted, very clearly, “I’ll try till sunrise!”

Sirius lunged toward the projection.

Remus caught his jacket. “Padfoot, it’s an image.”

“I know.”

“You cannot fight sound.”

“I can resent it.”

Regulus looked at Sirius with open amusement. “You are handling this very badly.”

“You were in a room full of wolves.”

“I was in a room full of wallets.”

“That is not better.”

“It is if they open.”

Barty whispered, “He did make a lot of tips.”

Lily muttered, “Do not encourage that sentence.”

The recording continued to the exchange with the woman near the bar.

Projected-Regulus sang, “You better shape up. If you're gonna prove.”

A woman’s voice shouted, “Are you sure?”

Projected-Regulus spun toward her like the whole thing had been planned.

“Are you sure?” she called again, laughing.

Regulus’s recorded smile turned wicked. “Yes, I'm sure down deep inside.”

Pandora actually squealed.

“Pandora,” Evan said faintly.

“No, I’m sorry, but look at him.”

“We are all looking at him,” Marlene said.

“That’s the problem,” James muttered.

Regulus tilted his head. “Is it?”

James stood abruptly. “I need air.”

“You will sit down,” Lily said.

James sat.

The refrain returned on the projection, and now the others watched with a kind of helpless awe.

Regulus teasing the room.

Sirius answering with trumpet.

The crowd trying to sing along though they had no idea where the song had come from.

The dress moving under the lights.

The voice.

The sheer confidence of it.

The projection showed Regulus stepping down from the stage.

“Oh no,” Pandora whispered, delighted.

“Oh yes,” Barty whispered.

Regulus sighed. “This part.”

“This part?” James asked weakly.

Peter, with the grim joy of someone holding evidence too powerful for ordinary civilisation, said, “Watch the man in suspenders.”

Regulus shot him a look.

Peter pretended not to see it.

Projected-Regulus walked into the room, microphone in hand, the cord trailing after him. The crowd noise grew rougher, closer, louder around the recording charm. People shouted right into the sound.

“Come here, red!”

“Sing it this way!”

“Look at me, sweetheart!”

“Give us a smile!”

“She’s trouble!”

“I like trouble!”

Real Sirius said, “I hate every man in that bar.”

Dorcas lifted a finger. “Some women too.”

“I’m considering everyone.”

Projected-Regulus spun neatly away from a reaching hand and sang, “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

The recording caught the laughter when he ruffled a man’s hair.

It caught the man’s friends shouting:

“He’s gone!”

“She killed him!”

“Look at his face!”

Then Regulus moved to the man in suspenders.

The real room leaned forward.

On the projection, Regulus tipped the man’s chin with one finger, smoky eyes lowered as he sang, “The one that I want, you are the one I want.”

The man leaned.

The real room collectively held its breath.

The man leaned farther.

Regulus withdrew and spun away.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh,” he sang.

The chair tipped.

The man dropped out of frame with a crash.

The recorded bar exploded.

The boarding house exploded louder.

James fell off the bed.

Fabian grabbed Gideon and screamed into his shoulder.

Gideon was laughing too hard to complain.

Marlene slapped the table.

Mary was crying with laughter.

Alice had both hands over her mouth, eyes huge and delighted.

Frank looked deeply concerned and deeply amused.

Pandora collapsed backward onto the rug in a heap of joy.

Barty had stopped making coherent sounds altogether.

Peter, who had already seen it, still looked like he might pass out from happiness.

Sirius pointed at the projection. “That was the best thing I have ever seen.”

Regulus crossed his arms. “He overcommitted.”

“You destroyed him.”

“I touched his chin.”

“You destroyed him with one finger.”

Regulus lifted that finger now and inspected it. “Powerful.”

Evan, still by the wall, gave a low laugh.

Regulus looked up.

Evan was watching him again, but this time the shock had eased into something warmer, more openly impressed.

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” Evan said.

Regulus’s smile was small. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“The falling was a bonus.”

Evan laughed again, and James, from the floor, groaned.

“What is happening to us?”

Marlene leaned over him. “Regulus got hot in a new font.”

James covered his face. “Don’t say it like that.”

“How would you like me to say it?”

“Not at all.”

Fabian, still clinging to Gideon, said, “He was already pretty, though. Like scary pretty.”

Gideon nodded, dazed. “But now there’s movement.”

Regulus stared at them both.

Fabian pointed weakly at the projection. “You moved.”

“That is generally required for walking.”

“No, you moved like... like...”

“Like he knew everyone was watching and decided to punish them for it,” Mary supplied.

Fabian snapped his fingers. “That.”

Regulus looked pleased despite himself. “Acceptable.”

The projection kept playing through the final refrain, showing Regulus returning to the stage, Sirius helping him up, the two of them whispering, then turning back into the performance. The room watched the last chorus in a silence broken only by occasional strangled noises from James and Fabian, a reverent whisper from Pandora, and Sirius muttering threats every time a recorded voice said something too bold.

When projected-Regulus held the final line — “The one that I want” — and let the band finish beneath him, the recorded bar detonated with applause.

Bills flew onto the stage.

Someone shouted, “Regina! Regina! Regina!”

Others picked it up.

Not the whole room, but enough.

“Regina!”

“Regina!”

“Regina!”

The real room went very still.

Regulus stared at the projection.

Sirius’s grin softened.

Pandora sat up slowly, eyes wide.

“They chanted your name,” Alice whispered.

“My fake name,” Regulus said.

Barty, unusually gentle for half a second, said, “Still yours tonight.”

Regulus glanced at him.

Barty immediately ruined the moment by adding, “Regina Black, jazz siren of Chicago.”

Regulus picked up a cushion and threw it directly at his head.

Barty took the hit with honour.

The projection faded as Peter tapped the charm off.

For a moment, the only sound was the city outside, muffled through glass: a car rolling past, distant laughter, footsteps somewhere below.

Then everyone began speaking at once.

James shot upright from the floor. “You have to teach me how to flirt like that.”

“No,” Regulus said.

Marlene pointed at James. “You’d injure someone.”

“He injured someone!”

“The man injured himself.”

Fabian raised both hands. “Can we talk about the voice?”

“No,” Regulus said.

“Yes,” said everyone else.

Gideon nodded vigorously. “The voice.”

Mary sat on the edge of the table. “You sounded completely different.”

“I was acting.”

“You were purring.”

“I was projecting.”

“You purred ‘feel your way,’” James said accusingly, then went red again because he had quoted it out loud.

Regulus smiled slowly. “Did I?”

James made a faint sound and sat down again.

Frank looked at Sirius. “How did you survive standing next to him?”

Sirius gave a grim nod. “Barely.”

Alice giggled. “You looked so proud, though.”

“I was proud. I was also prepared to commit several crimes.”

“Balanced,” Remus said.

Evan finally pushed off the wall and crossed closer to the table, not too near Regulus, but near enough that everyone noticed anyway.

Regulus watched him approach with amused caution.

Evan looked down at the now-faded recording charm, then at the money, then at Regulus.

“You should keep doing it,” he said.

Regulus blinked once. “The job?”

“The singing.”

Sirius looked at Evan sharply.

Evan did not look away from Regulus. “You’re good.”

The room quieted again, because it was one thing for everyone to scream and laugh and catcall their own friend in the privacy of rented rooms. It was another for Evan Rosier to say something plainly, low and direct, with no joke to soften it.

Regulus’s face shifted.

Not much.

Enough.

“Obviously,” he said.

Evan’s mouth curved. “Obviously.”

Sirius cleared his throat very loudly. “I am still here.”

Regulus turned to him. “You keep saying that.”

“And yet no one respects it.”

Pandora, still on the floor, lifted one hand. “I respect it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I respect your costume.”

Sirius looked down at his suit. “It is a good suit.”

“It is,” Pandora agreed. Then she pointed at Regulus. “But that dress is art.”

Regulus leaned back. “The dress is a war crime.”

“It fits you perfectly.”

“That is the crime.”

Mary sorted the money with Lily, still smiling. “Your war crime paid very well.”

“Exactly,” Regulus said. “Which is why none of you may mock it unless you are prepared to earn more.”

Fabian looked at the money, then at the dress, then at Regulus.

“I could wear red.”

Everyone looked at him.

Gideon slowly placed a hand on his shoulder. “No, Freddie.”

Fabian sighed. “Fine.”

James turned to Sirius. “So do you both have to wear those every night?”

Sirius nodded. “Apparently the crowd will remember.”

“They will,” Barty said reverently.

Regulus’s eyes narrowed. “You sound thrilled.”

“I am thrilled. I have witnessed the birth of a legend.”

“You witnessed me suffer.”

“With excellent breath control.”

Peter looked up from the money. “The recording also caught the tips being thrown. That might help us plan the budget.”

Lily nodded, returning to practical mode like a drowning woman finding shore. “Yes. With this, we can pay for rooms, food, supplies, and avoid transfiguring too much more money.”

Remus looked at Regulus. “So Regina is funding the project.”

Regulus stared.

The room stilled.

Then James whispered, “Breadwinner.”

Regulus slowly turned to him.

James hid behind the bedpost.

“You’re all insufferable,” Regulus said.

Sirius dropped into the chair beside him, loosened his tie, and slung one arm along the back of Regulus’s chair with casual big-brother satisfaction. “Maybe. But we’re rich insufferable.”

“We are not rich.”

“We are temporarily prosperous.”

“We are one jazz bar away from disaster.”

“But what a jazz bar.”

Barty sighed dreamily. “What a jazz bar.”

Lily pointed at him. “You are not going tomorrow.”

Barty sat up. “What?”

“You will not survive twice.”

“I survived once.”

“You tried to ask the bartender about local families.”

“I said families. That is a normal word.”

“Not with your face.”

Peter leaned toward him. “You did look very intense.”

Barty looked betrayed. “You too?”

“I’m your handler.”

Barty’s expression brightened instantly. “You admit it.”

Peter sighed, but he was smiling.

Pandora finally rose from the floor and came to stand before Regulus. Her eyes moved over the dress, the makeup, the exhausted line of his shoulders beneath all the glittering fury.

Then she reached out, very carefully, and fixed one curl near his cheek.

Regulus allowed it.

“You were beautiful,” she said softly.

Regulus looked away. “I was expensive.”

“That too.”

“I hate the dress.”

“I know.”

“It’s too red.”

“It is.”

“It’s too tight.”

“Yes.”

“The slit is absurd.”

“Completely.”

“The makeup is ridiculous.”

“Very smoky.”

Regulus looked back at her.

Pandora smiled. “And you still owned it.”

For once, Regulus did not immediately argue.

He only sighed, tired and theatrical, and sank deeper into the chair.

“I’m never living this down.”

Sirius grinned. “Not a chance.”

James, from behind the bedpost, lifted a hand. “For what it’s worth, I think I’m into Regina, not Regulus, so technically—”

Regulus picked up his purse and threw it.

James ducked.

The purse hit Fabian.

Fabian clutched it to his chest. “I accept this blessing.”

Gideon took it from him and handed it back to Sirius before anyone died.

Evan, quietly, said, “I don’t think it’s that technical.”

The room went dead silent.

James’s mouth fell open.

Barty’s eyes went huge.

Pandora looked like she might actually ascend this time.

Sirius turned very slowly toward Evan.

Regulus did not move.

He looked at Evan across the room with the faintest smile in his smoky eyes.

“Careful, Rosier,” he said.

Evan’s smile was small, steady, and not remotely careful. “I am.”

Sirius stood. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“No, you’re not,” Remus said.

“I’m trying.”

“You’re doing badly.”

Lily clapped her hands again, louder this time. “Bed. Everyone. Now. It is late, we have work tomorrow, and if I have to manage another ten minutes of whatever this is, I’m throwing myself into the lake that doesn’t exist here.”

“There’s probably a lake,” Peter said automatically.

Barty nodded. “Lake Michigan.”

Lily pointed at them. “Not now.”

They both shut up.

Slowly, reluctantly, still buzzing with laughter and shock and the image of Regulus in red projected above a table in a smoky jazz bar, everyone began to move.

The money was counted and hidden.

The recording charm was tucked safely away, though not before James begged to see “just the falling-chair bit” one more time and was denied by Lily, Sirius, and Regulus simultaneously.

Pandora insisted on helping Regulus out of the makeup before bed.

Regulus insisted he could do it himself.

Pandora won by looking wounded for exactly three seconds.

Sirius kept his suit hanging carefully over the back of a chair, pretending not to admire it.

James walked into the doorframe once more before finally being shoved toward his room by Marlene.

Fabian and Gideon whispered “Regina” to each other until Mary threatened to separate them like children.

Evan lingered at the doorway.

Regulus, seated before the little mirror while Pandora fussed with a cloth and cold cream, caught his reflection.

Evan looked at him.

Regulus looked back.

For once, neither of them said anything sharp.

Then Sirius appeared behind Regulus in the mirror, glaring at Evan over his shoulder.

Evan’s mouth twitched.

“Goodnight, Regina,” he said.

Regulus’s lips curved. “Goodnight, Evan.”

Sirius pointed toward the door. “Out.”

Evan went, laughing under his breath.

Pandora dabbed at the smoky makeup beneath Regulus’s eye. “Interesting.”

“Say nothing.”

“I said one word.”

“It was a dangerous word.”

“It was an accurate word.”

Regulus closed his eyes.

Across the room, Sirius sat on the bed and began counting under his breath.

Regulus opened one eye. “What are you doing?”

“Counting how many people fancied you tonight.”

“Stop.”

“I ran out of fingers in the bar.”

“Sirius.”

“At the boarding house, I had to start again.”

“I will sleep in the hallway.”

“You’ll freeze in that dress.”

“I’m changing.”

“Shame. Regina was growing on everyone.”

Regulus threw the cold-cream cloth at him without opening his eyes.

Sirius caught it, laughing.

Outside, Chicago hummed through the night, unaware that one smoky jazz performance had just rearranged the social order of sixteen time-stranded students in a rented boarding house.

Inside, Regulus Black sat in red silk and fading makeup, rich in tips, armed with a fake name, and burdened with the terrible knowledge that tomorrow, he had to do it all over again.

And in the other rooms, one by one, the others failed to sleep because the recording kept replaying in their heads.

The voice.

The crowd.

The dress.

The finger beneath the man’s chin.

The chair falling backward.

The chant.

Regina.

Regina.

Regina.

Regulus, hearing Fabian whisper it once through the wall, lifted his head.

“I heard that.”

There was a thump.

A muffled curse.

Then Gideon’s voice: “He heard that.”

Regulus smiled into the mirror.

Pandora saw it.

She wisely said nothing.

Days passed, and, against every reasonable prediction made by anyone with eyes, they started doing well.

Not normal well.

Not sensible well.

Not the sort of well that would make a professor nod approvingly and write excellent adaptability beside their names.

More like sixteen displaced magical idiots had been thrown into 1950s Chicago and, through spite, charm, panic, and extremely questionable employment, had somehow begun functioning as a community.

Which was worse, in a way.

Because now they were getting confident.

The boarding house no longer felt like a place they were hiding inside. It felt like headquarters. The little rooms had maps pinned to walls, spare clothes folded over chairs, food tucked into corners, and little coded notes written by Remus and Peter that no Muggle would understand because half of them were disguised spell instructions and the other half were Barty’s dramatic annotations about suspicious alleys.

Lily had found work by the third day, because of course Lily Evans could travel twenty years into the past, step into a strange city, and still become employable through sheer competence. She got herself a tidy little job helping with filing and errands in a small office where everyone immediately decided she was dependable, sharp, and slightly terrifying.

“They love me,” she had said flatly when she returned.

James, who had spent the afternoon being rejected from three possible jobs for having too much face, had said, “Of course they do. You’re you.”

Lily had looked at him.

James had gone red.

Mary had quietly laughed into a piece of bread.

Remus got the bookshop job.

Naturally.

He had gone in prepared to sweep, stack, carry boxes, run errands, clean windows, dust shelves, and pretend he did not know more than the owner about half the books in the shop. He returned three hours later with ink on his sleeve, dust in his hair, and a soft, private smile.

“They said I can come back tomorrow,” he said.

James cheered like Remus had won the Quidditch Cup.

Sirius, lounging in his jazz suit because he refused to take it off until someone physically made him, shouted, “Raymond, provider of literature!”

Remus looked at him. “You’re wearing a pocket square indoors.”

“I’m employed in entertainment.”

“You’re lying on a bed.”

“I’m resting theatrically.”

Pandora found work the day after that.

It was not easy.

Mary and Dorcas helped. Evan went once and was immediately banned from looking too intimidating at the door. Pandora finally found a small alterations shop run by a woman who looked her up and down for a long, silent moment, then asked if she could sew a straight seam, mend a torn hem, and keep her mouth shut around customers who thought fabric grew by divine intervention.

Pandora smiled and said yes.

By the end of the day, she had mended two dresses, fixed a sleeve, made three older women fall mildly in love with her manners, and returned with a small amount of cash tucked into her glove.

“I am Penny the seamstress,” she announced.

Regulus, in full smoky makeup while Pandora repaired one tiny loose thread at the edge of his red stage dress, said, “That sounds like a doll that comes alive at night and rearranges your teeth.”

Pandora beamed. “Thank you.”

The Prewett twins got labour work.

This was both a miracle and a public safety concern.

Fabian and Gideon came back from their first day filthy, exhausted, sore, and so pleased with themselves that Lily did not even have the heart to immediately criticise them for tracking dirt over the floorboards.

“We lifted things,” Fabian announced.

“Many things,” Gideon added.

“Heavy things.”

“Awkward things.”

“Possibly illegal things.”

Lily’s head snapped up.

Fabian held up both hands. “Joking.”

Gideon paused.

Fabian looked at him. “Joking?”

Gideon nodded quickly. “Joking.”

Mary put her face in her hands. “Never say anything again.”

Frank and Alice became frighteningly good at supplies. Mary became terrifyingly good at budgeting. Dorcas learned the surrounding streets like she was planning a siege. Evan helped where he was needed, which usually meant carrying things, watching people, or saying one sentence that made grown men reconsider their entire plan.

James, unfortunately, remained difficult to employ.

Not because he was useless.

Because he was James.

He had energy. He had confidence. He had charm. He had the ability to make strangers either adore him or deeply wish he would leave.

No middle ground.

“Why won’t anyone hire me?” James demanded on the fourth day, throwing himself across the bed.

Lily did not look up from counting coins. “Because you introduce yourself like a firework.”

“I do not.”

“You said, ‘James Potter, at your service,’ and winked at a butcher.”

“He laughed.”

“He asked you to leave.”

“After laughing.”

Regulus, seated at the mirror while Pandora touched up his eyeliner before work, said, “Perhaps try applying somewhere that requires pest removal.”

James lifted his head. “Are you calling me a pest?”

“Yes.”

“Affectionately?”

“No.”

Sirius, tying his stage tie beside him, grinned. “Honestly, Prongs, we could use you at the jazz bar. People throw money when Reg sings. They might throw things at you.”

“Money?”

“Glasses.”

“Less helpful.”

By then, the jazz bar had become the centre of their strange little world.

Simon and Regina Black were no longer a novelty. They were an attraction.

The boss had been right. The crowd remembered. Then the crowd grew. Then people brought friends. By the third night, half the tables were full before the first set even began, and by the fourth, people were arguing over front seats like Regulus was a prize fight in red silk.

Sirius loved the music.

Hated the audience.

Loved the applause.

Hated the catcalls.

Loved the pay.

Hated the boss calling Regulus sweetheart.

Regulus loved the money.

Hated everything else in an organised and deeply specific list.

He hated the dress, though he had learned to move in it so well that everyone else had stopped believing him.

He hated the makeup, though he now corrected the club girl if the smoky line around his eyes was uneven.

He hated singing, though he remembered exactly which songs earned the loudest cheers.

He hated flirting, though he could make an entire table forget their own names with one glance.

He hated cigarettes too, at first.

Then Gloria, the woman from the club with the cigarette and the amused eyes, had caught him outside between sets on the third night and offered him one.

“You look like you need something to do with your hands besides threaten men,” she had said.

Regulus had stared at the cigarette. “I don’t smoke.”

“Then hold it and look mean.”

“I can look mean unaided.”

“I noticed, honey.”

He had taken it out of spite.

By the fifth night, he still did not enjoy the taste, not properly, but he had learned the posture of it: leaning against the brick wall behind the club, red dress hidden beneath a borrowed coat, smoke curling from his fingers, eyes half-lidded, looking like every bad decision in Chicago had put on lipstick and heels.

Sirius hated that too.

“Mother would faint,” he said the first time he saw.

Regulus blew smoke sideways and coughed once when he thought no one could tell. “Mother would tell me I’m holding it wrong.”

Sirius had paused.

Then laughed.

“Yes,” he admitted. “She would.”

Orion, they both agreed, would pretend to disapprove and then ask if smoking helped with nerves, because Orion Black had never been able to resist turning any crisis into a practical discussion.

The week rolled toward its end.

Two days left.

Two days until the assignment ended.

Two days until the spell, hopefully, took them back to Hogwarts.

“Hopefully,” Remus said on the fifth morning, because Remus was the only one cruel enough to say it aloud.

James threw a pillow at him.

“Don’t say hopefully. Say definitely.”

“Definitely, if the original spell structure holds.”

“That was worse.”

“Definitely,” Lily said firmly. “We go back in two days.”

Regulus, eating toast in a dressing gown with half his stage makeup still faint beneath one eye from the night before, said, “Good. I am tired of being employed.”

Sirius looked offended. “I like being employed.”

“You like applause.”

“That is part of employment.”

“You like the suit.”

“That is another part.”

“You like making jazz faces.”

Sirius narrowed his eyes. “I do not make jazz faces.”

Everyone looked at him.

Sirius sat back. “I make one or two jazz faces.”

Regulus sipped his tea. “You make an entire gallery.”

Despite all that, despite the laughter, the money, the jobs, the strange comfort of routines that should never have belonged to them, something else had begun to settle around the jazz bar.

Or rather, someone.

Regulus noticed first.

Of course he did.

The first night, after the big performance, the man from the back table had simply moved closer.

Not all the way.

Not obvious.

One table forward, still surrounded by his people, still quiet, still watching.

Regulus had seen him from the stage during the second set and thought, with mild annoyance, that if the man intended to stare, he might at least tip.

He did tip.

Too much.

Regulus threw the bill into the communal pile and said nothing.

The second night, the man spoke to him.

He caught Regulus near the side corridor after the second set, not alone exactly, but far enough from the noise that the music muffled around them. He was tall, dark-haired, with a fine suit, a gold ring, and a smile that looked lazy because it knew other people would rush.

“Regina Black,” he said, voice smooth and warm around the name. “You make this place look better than it deserves.”

Regulus, who had been trying to adjust one earring Pandora had insisted he wear, looked him up and down.

“No.”

The man blinked, then smiled wider. “I didn’t ask anything yet.”

“You were about to.”

“That obvious?”

“Yes.”

He laughed softly. “I want to hire you. Private gig. Just you.”

“No.”

“You don’t know the price.”

“I know the answer.”

The man looked delighted.

That was the first real warning.

Most men got offended when Regulus refused them. Or embarrassed. Or foolishly determined for a few seconds before Sirius appeared and made the air unpleasant.

This man smiled like Regulus had just played a note exactly right.

“Hard to get,” he murmured.

Regulus stared at him. “Impossible to want.”

Then he brushed past him and went back onstage.

Later that same night, the man caught him again in the hallway.

Cornered was too strong a word, Regulus told himself.

He was not cornered.

He was simply in a corridor with a man in the way, and the man was smiling, and Regulus had a wand hidden beneath his dress in a way that made him perfectly confident he could solve the situation if needed.

“You walk away pretty fast,” the man said.

“You stand in inconvenient places.”

“I could stand somewhere better.”

“Try another state.”

He laughed again, softer this time, more charmed.

“You got a mouth on you.”

“I have several talents.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Regulus’s eyes narrowed. “How tragic for you.”

The man leaned one shoulder to the wall. “Name’s Lorenzo.”

“Congratulations.”

“Lorenzo Vitale.”

Regulus did not react.

He had no reason to react.

He did not know enough of Chicago to understand the name, and Barty was not there to vibrate through the floor at the sound of it.

Lorenzo seemed to like that too.

Most people probably reacted.

Regulus only looked annoyed.

“You married, Regina?”

Regulus gave him a sweet smile. “Horribly.”

His smile sharpened. “I don’t see a ring.”

“I ate it.”

Lorenzo stared.

Then laughed so hard one of his men peered around the corner.

Regulus walked away while he was still laughing.

The third night, Lorenzo brought gifts.

Flowers first.

Then a little velvet box.

Then something wrapped in paper and tied with ribbon.

He had them waiting on Regulus’s dressing table as if they had any right to be there.

Regulus came in, saw them, and froze.

Gloria, leaning in the doorway with her cigarette, whistled low. “Somebody’s got an admirer.”

“Somebody is getting a funeral.”

He picked up the flowers, the velvet box, and the paper-wrapped parcel without opening any of them.

Gloria raised a brow. “Not even peeking?”

“No.”

“What if it’s jewellery?”

“Then the bin can feel beautiful.”

He carried them straight into the main room where Lorenzo sat at his usual table, watching.

Regulus held his gaze.

Then dropped every gift into the bin beside the bar.

One by one.

Flowers.

Box.

Parcel.

The bar staff went silent.

Lorenzo stared.

For half a second, Regulus thought perhaps that would do it.

Then Lorenzo leaned back in his chair, face going soft with the most dopey, smitten grin Regulus had ever seen on a man who was not James Potter looking at Lily Evans.

“Oh,” Lorenzo said.

Regulus stared back in horror.

No.

Absolutely not.

That had not worked.

That had made it worse.

Lorenzo actually pressed a hand to his chest like Regulus had personally shot him and he had enjoyed the experience.

“Madonna mia,” he murmured. “She’s perfect.”

Regulus turned on his heel and walked away.

The fourth night, Lorenzo bought him drinks.

One after another.

They appeared at the edge of the stage, at the bar, near the hallway, carried by staff who looked increasingly apologetic and increasingly afraid of refusing the man who ordered them.

Regulus ignored every single one.

He did not touch them.

Did not acknowledge them.

Did not glance at Lorenzo.

Not once.

By the end of the night, there was practically a little shrine of rejected glasses near the bar.

Lorenzo sat watching him, chin resting on his hand, eyes soft, grin helpless.

Gloria passed Regulus during the last set and murmured, “Honey, I think ignoring him’s making him worse.”

Regulus hissed, “Everything makes him worse.”

“Maybe be nice?”

“I would rather swallow the microphone.”

“You’re a romantic.”

“I’m a hostage to capitalism and jazz.”

Regulus told no one.

This was his mistake.

It did not feel like a mistake at the time. It felt like avoiding Sirius becoming unbearable, Lily becoming strategic, Barty becoming fascinated, James becoming loud, Pandora becoming theatrical, Evan becoming quietly murderous, and Dorcas becoming competent in ways that might make the time-space continuum sweat.

Besides, Regulus could handle one smitten man.

He had handled worse.

He had handled Sirius before coffee.

On the fifth night, the club was packed.

The air was hot with bodies and smoke. The floor seemed to hum under the music. Sirius played like he was trying to outshine the city, all brass and swagger, his suit jacket open by the second set. Regulus sang, played, flirted, dodged hands, accepted tips, rejected three drink offers and one napkin with a phone number on it, and pretended not to notice Lorenzo Vitale seated closer than ever.

This time Lorenzo was near the side of the room, not at the back.

He watched Regulus the entire night.

Regulus ignored him the entire night.

Between sets, the boss clapped Sirius on the shoulder and told him to take five. Sirius went to get water and argue with the drummer about tempo. Regulus, hot and irritated and sick of the lights, slipped out the back door with Gloria.

The alley behind the club was cool enough to feel like mercy.

Regulus leaned against the brick wall, red dress hidden beneath the coat, one heel braced against the wall, cigarette between his fingers.

Gloria lit hers first, then passed him the lighter.

“You’re getting better at that,” she said.

“I still hate it.”

“You hate everything.”

“Not true.”

“What don’t you hate?”

Regulus thought about it.

“Money.”

Gloria laughed. “Smart girl.”

Regulus wrinkled his nose at the word girl but let it pass because Gloria was one of the few tolerable Americans in existence.

Inside, the club noise muffled through the wall.

Regulus exhaled smoke badly, coughed once, and glared at the cigarette as though it had personally failed him.

Gloria shook her head. “You gotta inhale less angry.”

“I do not inhale angry.”

“You inhale like you’re trying to win a fight with your lungs.”

“I win most fights.”

“Not this one.”

She flicked ash away and glanced toward the door. “I gotta check the front. Don’t wander.”

“I am leaning on a wall.”

“That’s a kind of wandering with you.”

She went back inside.

Regulus stayed outside.

Alone.

For one quiet minute, the night was almost pleasant. The alley was dim. The brick was cold through the coat. A car passed somewhere beyond the street. He could hear laughter through the club wall and Sirius’s trumpet warming up again inside.

Then something moved behind him.

Regulus turned.

Too late.

An arm clamped around him from behind. Something dark dropped over his head. Fabric, thick and smelling faintly of dust and cologne, swallowed the alley light. He twisted, elbow going back hard, heel scraping against the ground. Someone swore. He got one hand half-free, fingers reaching for the wand hidden beneath the coat.

Something struck the side of his head.

The world flashed white.

Then black.

A few minutes later, Sirius realised Regulus had not come back.

At first, he was annoyed.

Then confused.

Then still.

The band was waiting. The boss was waving from the bar. The drummer tapped his sticks together impatiently.

Sirius looked toward the side hallway.

No red dress.

No smoky eyes.

No curled lip.

No little gloved hand holding a cigarette badly.

“Where’s Regina?” the boss asked.

Sirius’s head snapped toward him. “I thought he—she was with you.”

The boss frowned. “Went for a smoke.”

“With Gloria?”

“Gloria came back in.”

The room changed.

Or Sirius did.

His face lost all stage brightness at once. The charm, the swagger, the grin — gone.

“What do you mean, Gloria came back in?”

The boss straightened. “Simon—”

Sirius was already moving.

He shoved through the side door, down the hallway, through the back entrance, and into the alley so fast the door cracked against the wall.

The alley was empty.

No Regulus.

No cigarette.

No coat.

No red dress.

Only one little smear of ash near the wall and a heel mark in the damp grit.

Sirius froze.

Then the boss came up behind him and saw the same thing.

“Where is she?” the boss said, voice suddenly sharp.

Sirius turned on him, expression so vicious that the older man stepped back despite himself.

“I don’t know,” Sirius said.

Then he ran.

He did not stop for his coat.

Did not stop for the trumpet.

Did not stop when the boss shouted after him.

He ran through Chicago in his jazz suit, hair loose, shoes striking sparks off the pavement, heart hammering against his ribs so hard it felt like panic had become a second body inside him.

Regulus was missing.

Regulus was missing.

Regulus was missing.

He reached the boarding house in what felt like no time and forever.

The door flew open hard enough to hit the wall.

Everyone inside startled.

James dropped a cup.

Lily shot to her feet.

Evan pushed off the wall instantly.

Pandora stood so fast her chair tipped.

Sirius stood in the doorway, breath ragged, face white, eyes wild.

For one second, no one spoke.

Then Evan said, very quietly, “Where is Regulus?”

Sirius swallowed.

The room went cold around him.

“He’s gone.”