Chapter Text
6.00pm, the day before the explosion.
The burns unit was always way too warm, if you asked Regulus. He could feel the heat through his scrubs as he walked down the hallway at six in the evening, coffee already cold in his hand. Monitors beeping steadily in the distance.
Another twelve-hour shift. Another day pretending none of it followed him home.
He was rather new at this, he was a certificated nurse, don’t get him wrong, a serious and remarkable professional, but his job at Sant Mungo’s as Registered Nurse had just started a couple of weeks ago, so yeah.
Regulus knew how to survive his job though, he had his own rules:
Don’t get attached.
Don’t ask personal questions.
Don’t remember patients after discharge.
And never imagined how they had looked before the fire.
These rules weren’t always easy to follow but he always tried his best.
“We have a new patient, curtain three.” Pandora announced as she enters the doctors’ lounge. “She is a little girl, could you please check on her?”
Regulus liked his boss, Pandora. She was the Charge Nurse and the only one who was nice to him since the beginning, honestly. She had helped him by offering him big smiles and sarcastic hurtless comments, so they got along.
Despite being his boss, Pandora never treated Regulus as an employee, but always like an equal. So, when Regulus saw that Pandora used to get close to the patients a little too much, he tried to explain his survival rules, but Pandora couldn’t help herself.
With a silent nod he finished his coffee and with that another day of work started.
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11.00pm, the day before the explosion.
The house was finally quiet.
Well, not completely quiet. Never completely with Harry around. But quitter than it had been the previous hour when Bed-time was Try to get four years old Harry James Potter tired-time.
James loved his son with all body and soul, but after ten and a half hours of fighting fire and flames he really, and he meant really, didn’t want to play dinosaurs, running through the hallway “scaping” the lava (the couch). But he did it, obviously. After all he would do anything for Harry.
Now he sat cross-legged on his bed, rubbing sleepily at his eyes while James tucked the blanket around him. James closed the book and gave harry a little kiss on his forehead.
“Papá, te has saltado dos páginas…” Harry complained softly.
James smiled tiredly “¿Quién? ¿yo? Que va, yo nunca haría algo así.” Harry narrowed his eyes, looking at him with suspicion.
James just looked back at him. Harry was an actual living image of him when he was his age, except for the two giant green eyes he had thanks to Lily. James ran his fingers through Harry’s messy hair, those big eyes staring at him with innocence and affection now. God, he loved him so much.
“Papá…” Harry held his father’s wrist when he tried to leave his side.
“Yeah?” James stopped immediately. There was something in Harry’s tone that gave James an uneasy feeling.
“Are you working all day again tomorrow?”
Harry’s eyes turned sad. The truth was, Harry was a loved kid by his parents. He meant the whole world for them.They wouldn’t for a second daud on give their lives for him. But both James and Lily had extremely time-consuming jobs. James was a firefighter, which meant about ten to twelve hours shifts.
Morning shift kept James from Harry since 9.00 am to 7.30 pm and night shifts kept him from 8.00 pm to 9.00am. With Lily it wasn’t much different. Her shift was twelve hours long in the best circumstances. But Lily was an Attending Physician which meant sometimes her shift would extend unlimitedly if there were an emergency.
Both of them were extremely impulsive that’s why, when James got down on one knee and proposed to her after Lily’s first year of med school, at the age of nineteen, she said yes without a second thought. Then Harry came, after Lily earned her medical degree, when they were twenty-three.
They have been divorced for three years now, shortly after Harry’s second birthday. When James thinks about it, he guessed that the lack of time and the exhaustion were what pushed them to get divorced.
One moment they had been two young parents surviving on burnt toast, cheap coffee, and four hours of sleep, the next, they were barely able to sit in the same room without arguing.
He loved Lily and he always will, and Lily will always love James, but not in the same way anymore. James had Harry during the week because, usually, his schedule was more stable than Lily’s, and she got to have him on weekends. So, they handle it okay.
He left a tired sighed “No, tomorrow I’ll be here with you… but I will work at night…”
“I don’t like sleeping in Dudley’s house…” James couldn’t say out loud that he understands it, but God knew he wanted. Lily’s sister had always been a bitch if you asked him, and as such, she found a husband and gave birth to a kid to match.
Dudley was honestly the worst, he would hit Harry in the nose every chance he could get, and his parents wouldn’t tell him anything! And that was just one of the multiple things the gremlin used to do.
“Okay, how about... I call uncle Pads...” James started, but he couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Harrys eyes shinned as bright as the stars with excitement “Yeyy! Uncle pads! Uncle pads! Uncle pads!”
“Okay, okay, I’m calling him… but now you have to go to sleep.” He kissed his forehead again.
“Okay… good night, papá...”
“Good night, pronglet”
He closed the bedroom door carefully behind him and finally exhaled. The exhaustion settled into his bones almost instantly. He went to bed reaching for his phone in order to call Sirius and then he won’t wake up until the next day noon.
Apparently no, because his phone started vibrating in his hand before he could even unlock it.
Remus calling
James frowned before answering. “If you are drunk again, I’m hanging up.” Remus Lupin was a good man, really. But he wasn’t the kind of person that used to call you, unless he and Sirius would have fought. Just like yesterday, mind you. Then he had to console them, convincing them that the world wasn’t going to end.
Remus laughed dryly on the other end. “I’m offended?”
“It’s almost midnight?”
“I know, sorry for that, listen I need a huge favor.”
“Sure, what can I do for you?”
“Could you switch shifts with me again tomorrow?”
“Remus…”
“I know, I know you don’t like morning shifts because of Harry… but you know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
James sighed leaving a few seconds in pure silence. “Remus, I know your dad is sick, and I really want to help you, but…”
“Please, just for tomorrow, he is having surgery and I- I need to be there… It is very important for me, please.” James could feel Remus struggling voice through the phone. “Morning shift instead of night shift, I owe you one.” His pleading tone made James heart drawn.
“You owe me two, actually.”
“Is that a yes…?”
“Is an I don’t know, I have to ask Sirius if he can babysit Harry again…” he ran his hand through his hair feeling his eyes grow heavier and heavier with every passing second.
“Hold on” Remus responded and James could hear him talking to someone “Heck yeah, I love that kid” he heard Sirius’ voice then. He wanted to kill both of them.
“Don’t worry Prongs, as the best godfather in the world, I’ll watch the pronglet.”
“You two are unbelievable.”
“So…?” Remus voice flinched with insecurity.
“…Fine,” he said after a sigh “But you are buying my coffee for a week.”
“Thank you, James, you saved my life.”
Funny thing to say, James thought after hanging out and crashing out of pure exhaustion in bed.
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00.30 am, the day of the explosion.
“What’s up?” Regulus answers his phone after the first six hours of his shift.
Six hours of work, twenty minutes break and then another six hours until he could go home. Oh, lovely night shift.
“Hey, Barty and I are ordering pizza for dinner, you cool with that?” he heard Evan through the phone, he was one of his two best friends and his roommate.
Regulus met Evan in med school, and although it was a bit embarrassing to admit, Regulus felt like Evan was the first thing he choose for himself, the first thing after med school, mind you.
Regulus let out a sigh as he answered “I’m on night shift, idiot. I sent you my schedule so you could know when I could be there for dinner.”
“Yeah… you know I will never memorize that, anyway, if Barty doesn’t eat the whole thing, you can have some for tomorrow’s breakfast.” Barty was his other best friend, they knew each other since they were two tinny infants because, well, his mother was the personal designer of Barty’s dad.
Now days Barty is the only thing from his past he’s still in contact with. And Regulus is very proud of that.
Having Black as the last name was something rather important in London. Because further than just another last name, it was one of the most exclusive, elitist brands in the world, as much as Dior or Channel. Being part of the Black family were more than one could possibly imagine, because those people didn’t function as a family, they were a brand. A perfect smokescreen of pure, perfect and always beautiful and happy people.
For the longest time, Regulus used to hear people telling him that he had his entire life solved. But he knew better. Behind all the shiny shell of being a Black, with the red carpet shows, interviews, uncountable fake articles showing a fucking fake happy family, there was just resentment, distrust, blackmail, guilt and secrets.
Deep, dark, fucked up secrets. The kind of secrets that put innocents in jail just for speaking up, the kind of secrets that hid years of psychological manipulation and abuse.
But all of it was now in the past.
Well,
all of it but Barty Crouch Jr.
But Barty was just Barty.
“Okay, sure, I have to go now. Oh, and tell him to fuck himself for me.”
“Gladly” Evan chuckles when he hanged the phone. Regulus loved those two idiots.
His phone rang then, after the twenty-minute alarm he had preestablished, time to go back in.
People might find funny the fact that he smoked, considering his job, but Regulus couldn’t help himself. Some days were too rough and he had to clear his head sometimes. The little girl from the start of his shift was something still in his mind.
Yeah, let’s say he hadn’t had the day of his life today. All he asked the universe was six hours of peace and quiet, along with the usual discomfort that came with the same old first- and second-degree burns.
Obviously, he should know better because the universe seemed to want to fuck with him today.
“Okay, everyone pay attention! We’re about to have a situation.” Dr. Meadowes enters in the doctors’ lounge, everyone has their eyes on her because, usually, seeing Dorcas meant bad news, terrible news.
“There was a massive explosion on the gas station, we will be managing middle-age adults, teens and kids.” Regulus could feel his throat burning. “I want you to be prepared, we will need oxygen masks, ET tubes, morphine and the required supplies for the circumstances.”
Everyone started moving as she ended the sentence.