burn
Regulus doesn’t know how it happens.
He wakes in a dimly lit room, aware of the world around him slowly. Until he realizes that everything hurts. He groans, but even that’s a sharp sting. It’s painful to breathe, to open his eyes and take it all in.
“Reg, love?” A voice, smooth but panicked. “Baby, are you awake?”
Baby.
Who the hell calls him that?
He looks to the side. Finds a face that’s objectively handsome but—unfamiliar. Tanned skin and wire-rimmed glasses and frantic hazel eyes. Black hair that’s sticking up in every direction, as though someone ran their hands through it a thousand times.
Something in his chest aches. Burns so hot he’s sure he’ll die from it. But he ignores the feeling, pushes it down, and asks,
“Who are you?”
“You married him years ago, Reg. It’s why you’re Regulus Potter, not Black.” Sirius frowns down at him from the edge of the hospital bed. “You really can’t remember?”
No.
No, he can’t.
“—talk to him and it might jog his memory.”
“And if it doesn’t?” James. Oh, his voice is so lovely. A balm on Regulus’ anxiety and fears.
Why can’t I remember him?
“I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, but there’s no way to know for certain.”
“So he may never remember me? Our life? Us?”
“No. No, he may not.”
Regulus believes he was in love with James Potter once.
His mind might’ve forgotten it—or locked it away, according to the Mind Healer—but his body remembers.
No, maybe it’s his soul that remembers.
Everything in him ignites when James is near. His skin burns from James’ touch alone, and his chest aches at the blatant sorrow in James’ eyes.
But the worst of it is when James brings Harry.
I don’t want to bring him, James had told the Mind Healer, furious. He’ll be crushed if Regulus doesn’t remember him.
Or he’ll be the key that unlocks all of Regulus’ memories.
Harry is both the key and devastation.
Regulus remembers him. Remembers reading stories to him late at night. Remembers teaching him how to ride a broom. How to play piano. Of course he would remember his own son, sat there on the bed’s edge with a gap between his teeth and excitement in his voice.
But it’s when Harry goes to use the restroom that devastation hits.
“You remember everyone,” James whispers. “Everyone but me.”
“James—”
“I don’t understand.”
Regulus hates that he doesn’t either.
James takes Regulus home almost two months after the Quidditch accident. It’s a beautiful house, clearly a sign of their wealth, with too many bedrooms and sprawling grounds. Exactly what Regulus would have wanted and he supposes James would have bought for him.
Harry is excited to see him. Wraps little arms around his leg and drops his chin to Regulus’ thigh, grinning. “Papa, when can we play? Dad got me a new broom.”
James shakes his head. “Not yet. But I’ll play with you later in the garden.”
“But Papa is a Seeker. I don’t want to be a Chaser.”
“Delightful. My own child.” James rolls his eyes, but shoos Harry away. “Give us five minutes. Okay?”
Regulus takes in the room James brings him to, uncertain. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like home.
“I didn’t think you’d want to sleep in our bed,” James tells him sheepishly. “So I made up the spare.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to sleep in our bed?”
“Well, I—I don’t know. I just—”
Regulus reaches out, palm to James’ cheek and a thumb rubbing absently at his cheekbone. James nuzzles into his hand and makes a pained noise.
“I miss you. I miss you so fucking much it’s killing me.”
“I’m right here, James.”
“I know, love. I know. You’re—I’m so glad you’re okay. But I miss you.” He reaches for Regulus’ left hand and slots it awkwardly with his. “I miss the you that loved me so fucking much we could do this.”
Regulus stares at the mirrored tattoos on their fingers. He burns again, from where James touches him to his very core. “I think my mind doesn’t remember you, but my body does. My heart does. My fucking soul does. It reacts to you. It—It burns for you.”
James smiles, soft and small. “You’ve always been a poet.”
Their bedroom isn’t enough to help Regulus remember, but it’s the beginning.
The beginning that leads to date nights, to first kisses that aren’t firsts, to Regulus whispering I want you and James lifting him off his feet to take him upstairs, to undo every part of him against their mattress, until Regulus burns so bright he explodes.
They fall in love all over again, and somewhere in it all, Regulus begins to collect pieces, small shards of a past he forgot.
Regulus doesn’t remember for years, and James doesn’t leave his side for a lifetime.