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James shouldn't be here. He knows that. He knows that if he was really over it, if he really loved Lily with all his heart, there wouldn't a death eater unconscious in a dark alley, wouldn't be polyjuice burning in the back of his throat. There's guilt lodged there too.
He was a death eater. James has to keep telling himself that. He was a death eater, he was a racist pureblood aristocrat, and he had wanted James dead, in the end.
Except that's not true is it? He had loved James, once, he couldn't have tried to kill him. It can't be true, and he can't be dead, and James can't be here.
"Oi, Mulciber! Are you coming?" Mulciber. That's who James is pretending to be. He slips the mask over his borrowed face, and follows the black-robed crowd into the meeting.
*
Voldemort isn’t here. James thinks he should be glad, but all he feels is numb. He's been like that for a while really, ever since he saw the dark mark, ever since those cold grey eyes stared into his soul and ripped out his heart. Still, the numbness has been worse lately.
Bellatrix is leading the meeting. James can see it in her bloodshot eyes, in the way her voice twists wrongly around the words; the Black family madness has begun to creep in. It's obvious really, not that anyone would dare say anything, not with how much Voldemort values her. That's what James assumes anyway, given she's still here.
She's talking about their next raid, and he knows he should listen, he knows, but it's not what he came for. He can hear his pulse loud in his ears, knows his hour will be up soon. Finally, she says it.
"And regarding my little baby cousin..."
James closes his eyes. He can't know. He needs to know. The newspaper didn't say how he died.
"He was a traitor! Little baby Reggie was a traitor! And now he's got himself killed, thinking he could hurt our Dark Lord!" She laughs, madly, and he can tell she's enjoying this. James can't breathe.
The meeting ends soon after that, he thinks. James can't hear much over the buzzing in his ears, but all the death eaters are trickling out the room. Some of them are laughing. He follows them out, hears a few of them call his stolen name, but he apparates before they reach him.
No one goes to the Potter manor anymore, not since his parents' deaths. But he can't think about that right now, too numb to feel sad, so James goes back to his childhood bedroom.
*
Traitor. The word runs through his mind, over and over. Reggie was a traitor to Voldemort.
Reggie. Bellatrix had called him Reggie too. James remembers him calling her Bella, once. He wonders what happened to them, for her to be laughing at his death.
Traitor. Traitor. TraitorTraitorTraitorTraitor.
It's worse, in some ways, knowing that James could have saved him. Knowing Regulus was still fighting, even though they had all given up on him. They had all believed it when he joined Voldemort. James had too. Stupid. He was stupid for letting him go and Regulus was stupid for leaving.
They were all so stupid and now Reggie, his beautiful Reggie, was dead. James still didn't know what had killed him. Maybe it had been Voldemort, maybe Regulus hadn't been as good a legilimens as he thought. Maybe it had been an Order member, and they only realised his true loyalties after he was dead. Merlin, maybe it had been James.
Maybe it had been James.
*
He gets up, eventually. James gets up off the floor, and he burns the robes and mask, dressing in the clothes he finds in his old wardrobe. He goes to Godric's Hollow (he still can't call it home, not yet, not yet) and tells Lily he was at his parents house. James sees her damp eyes, the sympathy, the pity in them, and knows she believes him. Reggie wouldn't have.
*
The war goes on. More people die, good people, and bad ones too, although there's not much difference these days.
*
James knows he's going to die when the death eaters come. He knows, and he knows Lily and Harry won't. They can't. He doesn't think about how Voldemort found them, he can't think about how Sirius must have been the traitor after all. Funny, that the brothers had still been on opposite sides in the end.
James looks into Voldemort's dead eyes, and all he can think about is Regulus Black.