James was sitting curled up with Padfoot on the couch of Remus and Sirius's cottage in south Wales, the same way he had spent so many other nights, especially in the past few months. There was a rare form of comfort that James was able to feel when he was surrounded by his few closest friends, and it had become even rarer since Dumbledore had cut contact between James and Regulus just over 4 months ago, saying that it was “too dangerous to maintain”. The past year had been difficult enough for the two men even when they were able to see one another every few weeks. Regulus doing all of the missions for the Order alone caused James to often feel the painstaking loneliness and stress of his missing partner, and it had only increased since James had discovered they were expecting.
As he stroked the soft fur of the dog beside him, he listened to Remus's falling attempts to put Cassie down for the night. He could hear the 8-month-old baby scream from the other room. For such a small child, his niece sure had a set of lungs on her. James could tell that Sirius was proccedingly getting more anxious as he watched the big black dog curled up in his lap periodically glance in the direction of the nursery.
But just as James was about to tell his best friend he should go get up to help his husband with their baby, the crying died down, and footsteps were heard down the hallway. Within a moment, Remus was standing in the living room doorway, holding a sniffling infant close to his chest.
With a sudden shift of magic, the dog in his lap transformed back into the familiar man he knew. “Moony, I thought we said we were going to start putting her down earlier in the night.” The dark-haired man rose to his feet to make his way across the small room to where his spouse and child were standing.
“I know and I tried, but she kept crying and screaming and reaching out to me and I couldn't just leave her there,” the scared man said as he planted a kiss on the forehead of his young daughter, “and with the full only a week away I know she's probably not feeling great and I thought some cuddles might help her feel a bit better.” the older werewolf looked at his husband with his shining brown eyes, as he gently bounced the baby in his arms.
James watched his friend's face melt the moment Remus mentioned the potential pain his daughter was in. Merlin, they both loved that kid so much; it was incredible to witness. James couldn’t help but let out a small laugh as he watched his two friends coo over their daughter.
It amazed James that the two men had ever doubted their capability to be parents, claiming that they both would never be able to care for a child the way they deserved. James remembered the first time the two of them had told him that, and he had found it laughable; they were two of the most caring people he’s ever met, so it was obvious that they would do well at caring for another person as well.
Merlin James remembers that day just over two months ago as if it had happened this morning. He was sitting at this very spot with the two of them seated down next to him as Professor McGonagall told them about the 6-month-old baby girl who the Order had rescued after her parents were killed in a death eater attack. The baby girl was the sole survivor of the attack, but she didn’t survive without any consequences. The baby girl, whom they later named Cassie, had been bitten by Greyback that fateful night, causing her to develop lycanthrope. Which led to why their former professor was there. The baby girl needed parents, and who better to be her parents than another werewolf and his husband?
James remembers how just adamantly against it they had been at first, how they were so convinced that they would be the worst possible option to take her in. But once they had met her, they had instantly changed their minds. From the moment they had looked into her big blue eyes, they knew they could never let her go; they knew that she was their kid, and there was nothing they could do to deny it.
As he continued to watch his best friends hold their baby, he couldn’t help the jealous feeling that started to grow in his chest. James placed his right hand on his growing baby bump as a small form of comfort as he watched the small family. Sirius was now rocking the small child to sleep in his arms as he sang to her softly in French, as the jealous feeling churning in his gut continued to grow.
“James, you ok, mate?” Remus asked as he made his way to sit down in the well-loved armchair next to him. “Cause it's ok if you're not, we’re here for you, mate.”
“Yeah, I know,” he responded back to his friend as he ran his fingers up and down familiar couch cushions. “I’m alright, I just miss Reg, and shit-.” James didn’t think he was that upset over it; he thought he had been dealing with all of this just fine, but as he felt the tears start to fall down his face, he knew he was wrong. Stupid fucking pregnancy hormones making him emotional.
“Oh, Prongs.” Sirius was now looking at him, with a sad face, fuck he hadn’t intended to upset him as well. The tattooed man walked back over to the couch, still holding his now sleeping daughter, and plopped himself back in the spot he had previously occupied not too long ago. “I miss him too.”
This just made James's tears fall even harder. He knew he wasn't the only one who felt the younger man's absence, but that knowledge still didn’t take away the ache in his heart. “It's ok, James, we’re here, let it out.” Remus was now rubbing his back.
“I’m ok, I promise, it's just the hormones,” James muttered quietly as he tried to excuse his breakdown with being pregnant, even though he knew that wasn’t the reason. And based on the way his two friends were looking at him, he knew they knew as well.
“Even if it is that, we’re still here for you.” Remus reassured him.
“I-” James’s attempt to end the conversion failed before he could even finish his sentence when Sirius cut him off.
“We all miss Regulus, Jamie, but we know how hard it is for you. Remus and I are separated from our friend and brother, but you, Prongs, he's your husband, and we know that's different.” Sirius ranted, “I mean hell, I don’t know what I would do if it was Remus. Especially with the baby on the way, and you haven’t even been able to tell him yet because Dumbledore cut off contact before we knew. And shit he won’t even tell any of us anything, not about him, or even Crouch or Rosier-”
James doesn’t know which comment pushed him over the edge, but suddenly, he was having a full-blown breakdown. Tears and snot covered his face, his head felt as if it was underwater, and there was a tightening in his chest. Suddenly, the whole room was spinning, like it was all going to cave in on him. He could hear the movement around him but couldn’t make out exactly what they were. He felt a set of large hands stroking down his back in an attempt to ground him, but he didn’t want those hands; he wanted Regulus’s. He didn’t care how he could have him; he just wanted his husband.
“James, Prongs, mate, we’re here, ok, deep breaths now,” a familiar voice spoke to him, a voice he knew; it was Remus.
“M- Moony,” he stuttered out, in between his ragged breaths.
“Yeah, Prongs, it's me. I need you to breathe with me, ok, mate?” Remus asked kindly. All James could do was nod in response, “ok, wonderful.” Remus placed one of James's hands on his chest. “Breathe with me, alight. Now In…… and out.” The werewolf continued to breathe with him till he was back in control of himself.
“Sorry, Moons, I don’t know what happened there. I thought I had a better handle on this situation.” James said in an attempt to brush off what had just happened.
“It's ok if you don’t have one though, this whole thing is hard, it's terrifying. Merlin, we’re only 21 years old, and we’ve been fighting in a war for 3 years now. We’ve lost too many friends and taken too many lives. And there's nothing wrong with needing to talk about it. Ok, James.” Remus continued, “Sirius and I talk about it whenever we need to. I don’t even know how many nights we’ve spent crying to one another, and we’ll do it for you, too, because we’re here for you, mate.”
“Yeah, I-, ok, guys, thank you,” James responded as he brushed away the last of the tears off his face.
“We mean it, James,” Remus reassured the shorter man once again. “We’re here for you.”
James just gave his friend a small nodd, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore tonight; thank Merlin that Remus could read people so well, though, because he didn’t push anymore, just giving him one more reassuring smile before changing the subject completely. “Sirius, love, how about you go put Cass down in her cot, and then the lot of us can tuck in for the night as well.”
“Yeah, of course. Good night, Prongs. I love you, mate. I love you, moons.” Sirius smiled at him as he got off the couch. “Come on, Cassie, let's get you to bed.” Sirius cooed at the sleeping child in his arms as he walked to the nursery.
“Night Pads, I love you too, Night Cassie,” James called after the older black brother.
“Let's get you to bed, James.” Remus smiled at him as he grabbed his hand to help him get up, which was greatly appreciated. As he started the third trimester, the ache in his body had gotten worse; the ache for Regulus got worse. Remus walked with him to the cottage's guest bedroom, which he had taken over in the past months of staying there.
“Night, Remus. Love you.”
“Good night, James. I love you, too. Sleep well.” the lycanthpoe said with a smile before turning away to his own room down the hall.
In his attempt to take Remus’s advice, he crawled into the large double bed in the center of the room and tossed and turned until he finally fell into a pitiful sleep.
_____________________________________________________________________
“James, James shit, you need to get up, we need to go.” Sirius was shaking him awake.
“Wha—what happened?” He was still mostly asleep and unsure of what was going on. As he grabbed his glasses, he could see Sirius standing above him, looking slightly disheveled like he had just jumped out of bed.
“Something's happened. I’ll explain more once we get to safety, but we need to go. Now.” he could hear the obvious panic in his voice.
“Fuck, um ok.” James was fully awake now as he scrambled out of bed; they needed to go now.
James could feel his mind running a mile a minute. What was happening? Was someone hurt? Was it Marlene, Dorcus, Lily, Regulus? God, not Regulus; he doesn’t think he could handle it if something happened to him.
He quickly tried to quiet his thoughts just for a moment as the two men rushed into the living room. James saw Remus bouncing the fussy infant in his arms.“Thank Merlin. We need to go, now!” The urgency in Remus's voice was evident, making James's anxiety spike as well.
“Where are we going?” James asked as he watched Sirius grab a box of the mantle and take something out of it. He could hear the yelling outside the cottage, this could not be good.
“We’re going to a safehouse, one that Reg set up. We'll be alright there.” Remus explained. James vividly remembered that about a year ago, Regulus had set up an emergency safe house at one of the Black Family properties. Regulus had attempted to explain it to James on a few occasions, but he hadn’t been fully paying attention, instead choosing to enjoy the little alone time they had together. A choice he was definitely starting to regret.
“This is a portkey we made that can only be activated by a member of the black family. I’ll explain the next part of the plan when we get there.” Sirius pinned the small brooch to his jacket as he swiftly grabbed James and Remus by the arms as he mumbled something in French under his breath.
With that, James felt a pull in his stomach, and the next thing he knew, he felt his body being transported somewhere new. James felt his body fall to the ground as his legs gave out underneath him.
Sirius quickly caught him before he could fully hit the ground. “I got you, Prongs.”
“Thanks, Pads. Sorry. I’m not good with apparition since the, well y’know.”
“I know, Jamie. Come on, let's go have a seat, yeah. We can talk more there.” The older man guided him toward the couch that Remus and Cassie were already seated on. James felt his throat tighten as the situation fully settled in.
“What? What happened? Is everyone ok? Is it Reg?” he could hear the panic in his voice, and he wasn’t even going to try and hide it.
“Regulus is ok, I promise, but um…. Marlene and her parents, they- were, they were attacked in their home tonight, and they shit, they didn’t make it.” as those words left his mouth, James felt his entier world shift. He felt the tears try to fall, it took everything in him to keep them from doing so. He refused to cry again today, he wouldn’t do it.
“And uh, Jamie, when the Aurors arrived at the scene, they found a note Marls left before she died. It said the rat did it.” With those words, James felt everything collapse around him. Peter and Marlene were his two oldest friends; he had grown up with both of them, and now he may have lost them both in the same day.
“We don’t know that it was Pete; maybe it was someone else. He wouldn’t- he wouldn’t do that to us.” James's voice broke as he spoke; there had to be another explanation to this, there had to be.
“It was, James. Lily was one of the Aurors on the scene, and she saw him when she tried to arrest him. She sent us a Patornus right after telling us to get out of the cottage because it’s not safe there anymore.” Sirius tried to explain it in the gentlest way he knew how; he was already aware of how stressed out the other man was and didn’t want to make it any worse than he had to.
James knew those words were his final breaking point as he felt the tear finally fall. He knew Lily would never lie to them, especially about this. Lily values honesty more than anything, and she had been constantly reminding them all how important it was to trust one another, so she wouldn’t tell them this if it wasn’t completely true.
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Regulus knew something was wrong, that something had been for a while. He had been questioning Dumbledore about it for the past few months, especially since he had insisted that he and James couldn’t even write letters to one another anymore. But the moment he felt the emergency safe house potkey activate, he panicked.
Barty, Evan, and himself were on guard at the manor tonight, and as much as it killed the three of them to have to protect Voldemort, they knew it was crucial to maintain their covers. But once he felt the magic ripple through his body, he no longer cared. He and Sirius had set up that safe house in case one of their homes got breached. It was an old black family home in northern France; they had spent weeks working on the wards and protective charms that surrounded it, and it could only be reached using the portkeys that the two brothers had. He knew that Sirius wouldn’t use it unless something was wrong, which just made him panic more.
“What's wrong?” Barty questioned. Spending their adolescence together had caused the three to develop an extremely close bond with one another; they could all read each other like a book, and sometimes, like right now, it was something Regulus greatly appreciated.
“Sirius, activated the emergency portkey-”
“Fuck, lets go” Evan now had a look of concern on his face.
Barty gave a slight nod in agreement as Regulus reached inside his robes to pull out the brooch. “You both need to hold on to me as I say the incantation; otherwise, you won’t come with me.”
Both men gave him a nonverbal acknowledgment as each grabbed hold of his robes. Regulus braced himself as he murmured, “Le dernier filet de sécurité.”, and immediately felt himself be transported.
As much as he could feel the stress coursing through his body, he also felt a sense of relief; in a few moments, he would be able to see James for the first time in over four months, he would be able to hold him, without having to think about when he was going to have to leave again. He would no longer have to worry about his position as a spy being revealed or the danger it would place his friends in if he was. He would be safe, along with the most important people in his life. He would be able to finally meet his niece and hold James for as long as he wanted, and no one would be able to force them to separate.
As the three men landed suddenly in the foyer of the safe house, Regulus was met with the sight of his brother pointing a wand directly in his face.
“Where did we used to hide food to eat during the summer of 1976?” The question he was being asked couldn’t help but make him smile, they hadn’t hidden food that summer after getting caught hiding it that Chrismas.
“We didn’t hide food that summer; we would sneak food up from the table and shove it into one another through the vent, or at least we did until we ran away in early July. Once we got to the Potters, we hid it in our wardrobe until Effie found it while cleaning and sat us down explaining that we didn’t have to hide food, and that we could just go to the kitchens whenever we would hungry.” As he finished his sentence, Sirius dropped his wand and pulled him into a tight hug.
“Fuck, I missed you, Reg.” Sirius let out a wet laugh.
“I missed you too, Siri,” he said as he hugged his brother back. “What happened? Is everyone ok? Is it James?”
“James is alight; at least he's not any worse than he has been for the past few months. He's kinda distraught right now, but um, Marlene and he parents were muder tonight. He’s in the other room with Cassie and Moony now.”
He was in the other room, just a few feet away from him. He wanted to smile and run to him but he couldn’t help the terrible feeling in his gut, Marlene was dead. Death was part of war, and Marlene isn’t the first friend they’ve lost, but that didn’t make them any easier when they did. “Who- how did it happen?”
“It was part of a death eater raid, and Pete, he was there….” as those words left Sirius mouth Regulus felt his heart drop, Peter betrayed them, he betrayed his best friends, he had killed one of them. He was the secret keeper for Sirius and Remus, he was supposed to be trust worthy.
“Shit. I- ” Regulus didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what to, he just wanted to comfort James to hold him and hug him, and tell him that everything is goning to be ok.
“Wait, who the hell is Cassie?” Evan asked; his two friends had been so quiet he had forgotten that they were there for a moment.
“Remus and I, we, we adopted a baby a few months ago. Her name's Cassiopeia, but we always call her Cassie. Merlin shes the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen” Sirius said with a smile. “Come on, you need to sit down, you lot look worse for wear.”
“My apologies. Being a double agent isn’t the most relaxing job out there,” Barty quipped back as they walked into the casual sitting room.
When he walked in, he saw James seated on the couch, leaning his head on Remus's shoulder as his body shook with silent sobs, as he curled his arms around his stomach. He could tell that Sirius hadn’t been lying when he said James was distraught. “Padfoot, what was that? Wait, Reg-” his voice broke as he said it, but the relief on his face was evident, he watched as the poor man stumbled of the couch twoards in an attempt to reunite with.
“Yeah Jamie, I’m here.” Regulus couldn’t help the way his own voice broke when he spoke, as he quickly rushed twords the older man. The two of them crashed into one another into as they collapsed into a pile on the floor.
Regulus felt how tightly James gripped him, as if he loaned his hold even a fraction the man in his arms would disappear. “Please, don’t leave, please, just stay, with us.”
“I’m here, love. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere I promise.” Regulus whispered back to him as he held him back just as tightly.
The two of them sat of the floor and just held each other like they were the only tow people in the world. Partly because they needed to feel close to one another and partly just because they could.
“James,” Remus said as he placed a hand on the darker man shoulder, “I know you need Regulus right now, but you can’t keep sitting on the floor like that, its not good for you or the baby Prongs.”
Those words caught Regulus attention in a matter of moments, “Baby?” Regulus couldn’t help how surprised he sounded.
“I- We- I’m pregnant, a little more than six months along, we’re gonna be parents, your gonna be a dad.” James sounded so small as he said it, “and I know, that this isn’t what we planned, but-” Regulus leaned in and kissed his idiot husband before he could finsh, after years of being with James Potter he had learned the most effective ways to prevent his anixtey spirals.
“We’re gonna be parents.” Regulus couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice, as he felt a smile broke out on his face. He was gonna be a dad, in a few months he was going to have a child with the love of his life. Despite Voldemort, despite Dumbledore, despite the war it.