no shade in the shadow

Christmas is only a week away, snow has been steadily falling for a couple of days and Edinburgh is covered in a white, crispy layer of winter magic. The street lanterns are decorated with Christmas lights and large, red bows, there’s a Christmas tree on the corner of every street, music coming from the shops, and everything smells of sweets and chocolates.

Regulus despises this time of the year with a passion unknown to most.

Never in his life has Christmas been as pleasant a time as it’s made out to be. Christmas means parties, dinners, balls, having tea with visitors and missing Sirius. Even while he was still there it wasn’t as it should be. Sirius would always be too busy being rebellious to take any notice of Regulus. Spending the days causing chaos at the parties while he would practice the art of becoming one with the shadows so that no one might start talking to him.

Regulus shivers in the cold, stuffing his hands down deep in the pockets of his coat and walking with a little more urgency than before, eager to get into the clammy, stuffy heat of the restaurant he usually so despises. He tries not to think too much of Sirius, but every ringing of the bells, every present behind a shop’s window, it all takes him back to that one night, and the more he attempts to shove it far into the back of his mind where it cannot reach his thoughts, the harder the memories come rushing back.

It is Christmas night, the usual Christmas festivities have begun at the Black manor in the English countryside, families from all over the UK have flown in to attend, some of them are of royal descend, but that doesn’t impress him much, Regulus himself has royal blood running through his veins.

The buffet is steadily brought into the room, dish by dish, the servants hurry in and outside the room like the devil is on their heels, which, Regulus knows, he is, or rather, they are. His mother is standing in the center of the room, leaning on his dad’s arm and watching over the ballroom with hawk’s eyes, closely keeping track of every single thing happening.

The ballroom is large, circular, the ceiling is arched and of glass, so that the light of the stars and the moon can enter through on nights like these. There’s Christmas trees at the walls, behind which there are numerous expensive paintings by famous artists on the walls. Candle light flickers on the walls, the chandeliers act like mirror balls, the music comes from the orchestra, sitting at the far end of the room, and there’s heaps of people in their most expensive clothing doing waltzes as if they have been transported several hundred years back in time.

Regulus is sitting alone at the large table reserved for Black members only, in his designated place, waiting for dinner to start because he can hide and go upstairs to his room afterwards. For now, though, he has to keep up appearances. Smile back at those who glance at him, be polite and make a joke whenever the occasion calls for it, just as his parents expect of him.

Not many do come to him, however. No, everyone is always more focused on the heir, on Sirius. They know Regulus to be shy and awkward and prefer to pretend as if they are unaware of his existence, instead chasing after the heir all night in hopes of painting themselves in a good light with him. One day Sirius will inherit everything, and it’ll be in a person’s favor to be friendly with him, they all know that.

Sirius himself doesn’t care so much for that. Right now he is prancing around the room with their older cousin Andromeda at his side, whispering, pointing and giggling at whoever they like, knowing they are closer to being gods than any other regular person on this planet.

Sirius has confided in Regulus and told about her relationship with a regular boy, her pregnancy with a regular child, she’s meaning to break the news tonight and cut ties with the Black family for once and for all. This’ll be their last chance at causing chaos together.

His tie is undone, enough buttons of his dress-shirt opened so that he’s reached that level of cockiness where he thinks he’s untouchable, invincible, his hair is several inches longer than is allowed, and he’s ignoring everyone except for Andromeda. Not very like what he’s supposed to be. His spine isn’t rigid as their parents like it, his shoulders aren’t straightened, he’s loud and snorts when he laughs and Regulus can tell from the look on his mother’s face she’s about to lose all her patience with him.

To make matters worse he’s been downing glasses of champagne like it’s water. Now, they’re allowed one glass, for the toast, but that’s all. Nothing would look worse than two underage boys of the Black lineage to be stumbling around the party drunk.

Which is exactly what Sirius is doing at the moment.

Regulus sighs and checks his watch. Barty and Evan will be here soon, in time for dinner, he’s just got to survive through this and pray no one will ask him for a dance.

For years now things have been off between him and Sirius. As little boys they were inseparable, and heavily relied on each other, mostly because Sirius took it upon himself to be Regulus’ parent, a nice one to make up for the shitty people raising them. But then that might have been the problem, Sirius raising him as if he wasn’t a child himself. Taking the blame for things and keeping Regulus out of trouble. Bearing the punishments all on his own and making himself the center of their parent’s rage so that Regulus would be protected.

He never asked for Sirius to do such things.

Regulus doesn’t know how to make up for any of that, and he’s starting to get the feeling Sirius secretly despises him for what he’s had to do. Only for Regulus to turn out not to be like him.

Sirius is rebellious, even now, but Regulus can’t do it, he simply can’t. There’s still always that part of him that wants nothing more but his parent’s love and approval and he will do anything for a glimpse of that, he doesn’t hate them as Sirius does.

Sirius seems to jump up from every blow and shrug it off like nothing happened. He is utterly untouchable, almost amused, whereas Regulus feels terrified. Regulus accumulates it all underneath his skin and holds onto it, bulging with the fear of doing something wrong, and paying more attention to himself so that his parents will never be provoked to lash out to him like they do with Sirius.

And ever since he turned sixteen a few weeks ago it has gotten worse. Something has shifted, his rebellion has turned into disregard of their parent’s wishes and he no longer cares about them or what they think of him at all. He thinks he’s an adult now and can do whatever he likes, but he's still the heir of the house of Black.

It is stupid and dangerous, and in the end, it will change nothing. At least not for the better.

He just cannot comprehend why on earth Sirius behaves as he does. What is he trying to achieve other than days without food, furious parents, hits, screaming, and all the other things they have normalized ages ago?

Acting out as he does won’t magically make them better parents, or like them more, or accept them or treat them better.

No, but doing as they say might. Somewhere they have to have a heart, right? If only Regulus proves to be a good son, surely they will love him?

He can see Sirius cross the room, roughly grabbing the arm of a servant and asking him for something, or rather, demanding something. Regulus watches patiently, and sees him return with another glass of champagne he hands Sirius. Funny, Sirius does nothing but talk badly of how the people in their societies behave, yet he behaves like the spoiled, privileged prince he knows he is. A bit hypocritical, isn’t it?

Enough, enough of this foolish behavior.

Regulus gets up from the chair, meaning to go to Sirius and take away the glass, though he will not like it, it’s better. It will be better for both of them if for one night everything goes smoothly.

But it seems Sirius has already gone too far and before Regulus can, their mother has reached Sirius’ side, a young girl with her.

He approaches silently, to see what is going on, and stands behind Andromeda as he listens.

“Sirius, this is…” He doesn’t catch her name, too busy looking her up and down.

It doesn’t really matter what she looks like, though, she’s not Sirius type any way.

She’s not a boy.

Sirius won’t come out with it, and Regulus no longer feels comfortable enough around him to just outrightly ask, but he knows his brother and he knows Sirius is gay.

Parties like these are overflowing with the most beautiful girls who would like nothing more but to dance with Sirius, and he doesn’t even look in their direction, he never has.

The boys however? He looks at those, but won’t act on it.

“Won’t you dance with her.” It’s a statement, not really a question, and Sirius scoffs, at both the girl and their mother, too drunk to get out a proper word.

“Sirius.”

“No, thank you.” He dips his head down in a mocking bow and turns his back on them, the champagne in his glass slightly spilling over the edge and splattering down to the floor. Regulus watches it glisten on the marble, catching the light of the candles, tremble with the dancing.

Sirius is digging his own grave. Regulus feels his throat close, anticipating the worst. As soon as the guests clear out and it’s just them, the entire family will turn on him. They will tear him apart. Now that he’s sixteen… Regulus knows what they’re capable of, he knows what they are willing to do to keep their heir where he’s supposed to be and polish him until he is perfect. They will imprison him, shackle him to his bloodline, Sirius has been joking about it for a year now, expecting it to come sooner than later.

After all, most members of the Black family are still married off like they’re living in medieval times. Narcissa’s wedding was the summer of the year she turned sixteen. No one would bat an eye at Sirius being paired off with a pretty, rich young girl.

“Sirius.” Once again. Dad, this time. Mom can sometimes appeal to him, they can be soft together, almost normal, but when dad talks as cold as he does now, like he’s on a warpath, even Sirius should know to come crawling back on his knees and beg for forgiveness.

He pretends he doesn’t hear and walks off. Andromeda follows him, but glances back, plain fear in her expression. Any person with a rational brain and some years of experience in this family knows Sirius has overstepped for the last time.

Regulus watches, holding his breath, as his dad calmly follows Sirius through the room.

The ringing of the Christmas bells makes him want to throw up all over the elves, thrash one of those stalls displaying the birth of Jesus, and rip the costumes off the fake Santas, setting them on fire and scattering the ashes in the perfectly white snow.

In his eyes, there’s no point in all this fake cheeriness, pretending to be oh so perfectly happy, when he knows it’s all bullshit anyway and deep down everyone’s got their demons and true happiness does not exist, not even around Christmas time.

Although, okay, maybe true happiness does exist but only to one person. Only to that wretched James Potter. Stealer of brothers, king of annoying people, on the top of his list should he ever snap and turn into a serial killer.

He’s been unreasonably mean to him the past few weeks, he knows that, and it’s by far the most enjoyable thing he’s ever done in his life. Just the anticipation of seeing that disappointed look on his face is nearly making him drool like a rabid dog and he’s already compiling a list of insults to throw at him.

Just what he deserves. Regulus is simply doing what’s right, getting his deserved payback, take my brother? Sure, I’ll crush your soul. An eye for an eye, it’s only fair.

And it is not like he is an awful person, deep down inside. Sirius used to say Regulus was the sweetest boy he’d ever seen. But life was cruel to him and Regulus had to adapt to it.

Forming connections with people doesn’t mean anything if in the end they will only abandon him, so he might as well keep them on a safe distance, which is much easier if people don’t like you in the first place.

The walk to work is dreadful, his leg is itching to kick the small children in their faces and see them fly through the streets, and it’s not long until he’s conceiving a plan suspiciously similar to the Grinch’s.

Yes, and he’ll start with James. Hunting him down at his parent’s house, boarding up all the exits and- no that’s too dramatic. He can just rob the entire place, same amount of fun, less chance of ending up in jail.

As the rumors go James will be going home next week, wherever that might be, but Regulus is determined to find out since the rumors did mention something about his best friend coming home with him. His best friend being Regulus’ brother, Sirius Black.

Imagine that, Sirius going home with James. Wearing Christmas pajamas, decorating the tree, baking cookies and watching those disgusting movies in a warm and happy home with loving parents.

No, he’s not bitter or jealous at all.

At their disgustingly sweet friendship, how close they are, how comfortable, all of it. He’s seen them on campus and about town, it’s impossible not to, they are Sirius Black and James Potter after all, everyone’s heard of the two best friends, they strut through the hallways like they own them, play football on the patches of grass in between buildings, cause chaos in the library but somehow manage to get away with it every time, because it’s them. Regulus has had to watch them walk shoulder to shoulder, whispering, giggling like schoolgirls, seemingly unable to be apart. Attached at the fucking hip. Well, wouldn’t he like to go at them with a chainsaw.

The restaurant appears before him, warm lights shine through the windows, and even from here on the street he can hear the pianist is playing Christmas songs.

What a jolly time this night has in store for him.

If people thought he was unapproachable at first, they make sure to circle around him in a wide arch ever since that freezer thing with their beloved hero James happened. Fine, it only suits him. Less small talk he’s not in the mood for, faking smiles and pretending to like any of those morons.

He grunts a hello as he enters the locker room, he might be mean and scary, but he’s not that unadapted to society. In the locker room he checks his reflection.

His appearance might matter to him in most situations, but here? Where people rich enough to have associations with his family might come to dinner? Here he prefers to look a little rough. A little unlike the slick image of a boy people might recognize in him.

Especially considering James is here he does not give a fuck. He thinks. For the most part. Maybe he should’ve tried to get a little more sleep that night because those circles under his eyes make him look like he’s a Victorian era child battling a simple flu, but in the whole he’s not too mad about his reflection staring back at him.

James can’t look at him and deny his beauty, and that does him well.

Not like he cares, but it’s a nice thought.

One by one his colleagues pile into the locker room, preparing for what they all know will become a horror night. It’s a Saturday, a week before Christmas, parents are visiting their student children, tourists are vacationing, families celebrate early to avoid the large crowds. This will be the busiest night yet, since he started working here.

For now the restaurant is fairly empty, just some people having late lunches or afternoon drinks, but it won’t be long until dinner time starts.

James isn’t here yet. That must be a mistake. Frank has set in place this new thing where he sends everyone’s schedule to everyone, to avoid either Regulus or James asking whether they have to work together, and due to that Regulus is sure James was supposed to work tonight. It’s possible he switched a shift, or called in sick.

He tries not to feel too disappointed.

His reflection scowls back at him, lips turning downwards into a sneer which inevitably every member of the Black family will fall victim to. He’s not disappointed. In fact, it’s only better like this. More time and energy to focus on work instead of avoiding James, coming up with snarky comments or enduring his flirting.

Frank enters the room, there’s this perpetual look of panic he tries to hide behind a smile on his face and he’s wringing his hands together in a way that makes all of Regulus’ miserable thoughts of earlier go away, there’s no better cure than to see other people suffer. Sadly, he’ll also be doing the suffering, since he’s just a regular mortal nowadays, instead of the heir of one of the most ancient and well-established families in all of Europe. Oh, he liked being so close to divinity people feared him as if he were a god, and look at him now? In a suit that doesn’t quite fit, working a job. This night might just end up being worse than he even imagined.

“We’re fully booked tonight, I expect there to even be a line outside and two of the cooks have called in sick so I’m going to need you to step in, which in turn means we’ll be short on waiters. Make sure to work fast and efficiently tonight, okay? Just think of the tips if it all gets too much.” His eyes flick across the room, lingering on each of the waiters in hopes none of them will break. But the night hasn’t even begun and Regulus feels a smirk forming on his face as he sees one of the newbies swallow with difficulty.

There’s an anticipating silence in the usually so loud locker room and they all stare at Frank as if they’re a bunch of lost children and he their savior.

“Go, go, think of the tips.” He mutters at them. Regulus rolls his eyes, no amount of money in the world is worth working such a horrible job, though he can’t deny the pay is better than anywhere else and he wouldn’t be able to support himself without it.

If only he hadn’t had to leave home, he wouldn’t have to be here, working, living like a beggar. That’s one thing he never once imagined. He could’ve still been at home, at the estate, haunting the empty, long abandoned rooms like a pathetic ghost. He could’ve gone to Paris, lived in a luxury apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

Then again, he still would’ve been caged. Doing only what his parents expect of him and none of what he wants for himself.

He’ll never say it out loud and would rather bit off his own tongue than fall as far as that, but Sirius might’ve been partly correct back then, acting out like he did and running off.

Such a shame Regulus was never brave like him, or they might’ve been here together. Sharing uncle Alphard’s house, which he’s certain Sirius lives in. He’s been avoiding it, afraid to even get into that neighborhood out of fear of running into him.

Especially now that their connections seem to entangle as they do, Sirius knowing James, Marlene often being at Barty and Evan’s place, it’s more important than ever to watch out carefully where he walks, do everything in his power to avoid running into Sirius. On campus he wraps his entire face in a scarf just to be sure, and he’s never not on high alert, scanning every corner of every street for a glimpse of him so he can run away and hide in time.

It’s for the better, like this. They never understood each other anyway, and them living together would’ve turned into a disaster that’d have put Cain and Abel’s story to shame.

James bursts into the room, fashionably late as per usual. Regulus can see why Sirius adores him as he does, they’re two halves of the same failed experiment. James is everything Regulus was always too afraid to be, everything Sirius wished for him to be and looked for in others, and he’s found it now. James laughs loudly, smiles from ear to ear, he jokes and plays pranks, he’s the kind of guy who can make anyone laugh, and cheers up every single person he talks with, an entertainer, to make everything a little better and funnier, he sees life in a lighter way and can likely give Sirius the sweet distraction he’s been chasing all his life.

“Hey, guys.” Frank approaches Regulus, and after observing the state of the room he comes to the conclusion that the rest have all cleared out, it’s just them three.

Frank sounds slightly terrified, “Can I please ask you a favor?” He presses together the palms of his hands and pouts his lips.

“No.” He barks out, finding it very difficult at the moment not to punch that ridiculous pout off his face.

“Sure.” James says at the same time, and Regulus turns toward him slowly, dropping his eyebrows and relaxing his face so that it looks as if he’s practicing some dark magic and trying to kill James. It works mostly, the face, but on James it seems to always have the opposite effect of what he wants. It makes him grin at Regulus, arching an eyebrow as if he’s amused, nearly begging for a snarky comment.

“You’re the only two on shift tonight that have been trained in the kitchen. Can you work there together and not… and behave yourselves?”

“I’m fine with that.” James says quickly, and Regulus can feel the rage building inside of him. Now he’s making it seem as if Regulus is causing all the problems when he’s not even the one who stole someone’s brother. Hypocritical ass, making himself look so perfect and put together when in reality he’s a filthy thief.

“Whatever.” He sighs, scratching at his forehead with his middle finger and looking right at James before he walks into the kitchen.

James follows close on his heels and he counts down the seconds until he makes the first of his awful jokes, or starts flirting. He does neither.

Disappointment, again? Really? He’s going to have to catch up on a lot of sleep tonight because it’s quite obvious his bodily functions are upset from the lack of it.

The cooks are a little intimidating, though Regulus won’t show that, naturally. They’re all large guys, with lots of tattoos and full beards. He feels like a subordinate as he stands and waits for them to point him and James to the stove, in charge of grilling for the night.

“Excited for Christmas?” James shrugs off his jacket and Regulus’ heart jumps inside his chest. Wow, he never knew sleep could fuck with the brain this much. He raises his eyebrows and smiles at Regulus- James smiling is like clouds parting, letting in the streaming sunlight, turning the world a fairytale golden where nothing is impossible.

He’s in a white dress-shirt, which fits him just perfectly, showing his broad shoulders and toned arms. Fuck- the toned arms. When James carefully folds his jacket and tucks it on top of one of the cabinets the muscles in his arms visibly shift underneath his shirt. The buttons strain and the shirt slightly opens in between the buttons, revealing small bits of golden-brown skin. Why is his mouth watering? Why is he feeling the urge to, of all things, lick- no, stop this. He is going mad, mad from the lack of sleep. He’ll drop by and get some melatonin after work, getting a good several days of sleep. A hibernation sounds perfect right now.

As he’s putting on the perfectly white apron, tying it behind his back, he glances up at Regulus. His large brown eyes reflect the little flames dancing on the stove and he looks like magic. It’s all too much for him and he turns away from James, making sure to look as grumpy as possible while he knows he’s blushing from head to toe.

It's just James Potter, he tells himself. A stinky athlete who is likely a carrier of all STD’s known to man and then some, who stole his brother, who only flirts with Regulus to belittle him and who looks criminally good in all this white so tight to his figure.

No, he shakes his head at himself, ignoring the beginnings of a jumpy heat in his lower abdomen, no, he does not like James Potter.

“Massively.” He grunts, grinding his jaws.

“Really? I didn’t take you for a Christmas lover, what are you most excited for? I think I’d like to-“

Regulus stares back at him, not saying a word.

“Oh, you’re just being sarcastic.” ‘He breathes out, accepting the first order and plopping some large blobs of meat into the pan. The flames shoot up as they always do, and both of them step back as in a reflex, the heat burning their faces, and Regulus just knows it’s going to be a terribly long and exhausting night.

But that’s fine, that’s life, or, at least his life as it is at the moment. He’s just in the kitchen at work, standing with that complete dickhead, or rather his mortal enemy, also known as James Potter, and he can do this, stand here and hate him in silence.

“Did your exams go well?”

Regulus looks at him from the corner of his eyes, James is flipping the meat, immersed in complete concentration, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips and he looks kind of… adorable?

Gross, no. No, he doesn’t. He’s a grown guy, sort of, a tall boy more like, with slight stubble on his chin and wild, untamed curls framing his handsome face. How in the world is that adorable?

“Is this one of those nights where you won’t speak to me?”

He wonders if James has even noticed the pure, burning hatred Regulus feels when he looks upon him. The flirting has died down, and Regulus can at times hear hesitation in James’ voice, but he’s never stopped making an effort to chat with him.

“Fine.” James sighs. “I’ll just talk to you. So, I passed all my exams, with ease might I add.” He knocks his elbow against Regulus’ shoulder and winks at him, “It’s just… I don’t know.”

A sense of curiosity floods over him. Perfect, has never had a bad day in his life, James Potter is unsatisfied with something? Is the sun about to explode? Is the end nearing? Will the seas flood? It is a pure miracle, the boy is the epitome of perfection, always talking everyone’s ears off their heads, and now he is unable to find the words to something he’s quite obviously struggling with. Regulus can’t believe his eyes.

“We had this group work assignment, and it was great because the groups were assembled by the professor and she put me with all the geeky nerds, you know people like you, so I was like, great, I won’t have to do anything right? But one of my teammates from football was also in my group and I said something to him about being lucky we wouldn’t have to do something and he just looked at me weird.” James pulls a face, scrunching up his eyebrows and crinkling his nose- fuck he is quite attractive.

“And he was all like, ‘dude, if you never do anything how do you expect to work in this field’. And it got me thinking, so I looked around and saw everyone working with just… so much passion and ambition and love for what we do and I thought to myself, I don’t have that. I skip lectures as much as I can and if we have something mandatory I’ll either play games or stare at the wall. Is that not normal?”

Regulus focuses on the sizzling meat in the pan, eyes following the bubbling butter as it splatters up against the backwall of the stove. James Potter is unhappy with his degree? Could this be connected to his scarily empty eyes? But Regulus thought he was just super dumb? Paying his way through university? What other explanation could there be?

“Reggie?”

“What is it, Potter?” He sneers back, why hasn’t he just stopped yet? Several of Regulus’ classmates have left already, figured out that this study program turned out not to be what they were looking for. James could just drop out, so why won’t he? The world won’t end if you figure out you’ve picked the wrong thing and leave it for something better.

“You didn’t answer my question. Is it not normal? I mean, it’s still school. No one likes school, but now everyone seems to like university and I don’t.” Regulus turns, taking in the pained expression on James’ face.

Where the fuck is his everlasting smile?

“I guess it’s different for everyone.” Regulus replies with a shrug, though, no. It’s not normal, he wouldn’t say so. Whatever you do in university should be something you love a hundred percent, that’s the beauty of university, you can choose all by yourself what you like best, and study it.

The way James phrased that sentence reminds him of Evan, who said nearly the exact same thing to him just a week earlier. But Evan is neurodivergent and it doesn’t matter what he studies, it will never make him as happy as it does other people because the system isn’t set up to fit his needs.

That’s not what James’ issue is, in fact, it’s about the furthest removed from whatever James’ issue could possibly be.

“I just never really looked into it. I decided I’d do this one day and never looked back. But I really do love the ocean and I would love to… I don’t know, breed coral reefs, preserve wildlife and do research or whatever. I just didn’t expect all these courses about governance and law and economics and shit. If I’d wanted to study law I would’ve just done that. I don’t know, I think I’m just tired, these are always busy weeks, just forget I said anything, I don’t even know why I mentioned it with you, I’ve never said it out loud before and now I’m only making myself doubt more so just… silence is good. We can stand here and not talk.” James rambles on, the words spilling from his mouth without end, and with each one he seems to lose a little of that certainty and strength he usually carries with him.

Regulus knows why he’s telling him, though. Or can come up with a possible explanation. James think Regulus hates him, so there’s really nothing to lose. Would his friends judge him for speaking truthfully about things like these? Is that why, out of all people, he felt he had to confide with Regulus?

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did, and yes, I would absolutely love to go on a date with you, I thought you’d never ask, love.” James shoots back, eyes glistening happily in the flickering light from the fire on the stove.

He sighs, deciding to not react to that, what’s that saying again? About choosing not to add gas to the fire, or something? “So there’s still some courses you like?” Regulus asks him.

“Yeah, but even those- I don’t know, Reggie. I just don’t know what I want and stuff. I never thought about the future, just can’t picture it.” Regulus feels a shiver run down his spine. He never fucking thought about his future? Cannot picture it? Isn’t that like sign number one when it comes to recognizing chronical depression?

“You’re very young.”

“But everyone else seems to have it figured out already.” James counters. “You have it figured out, you’re going to be a great fucking author and I’ll be at home.” There’s a hint of anger in James’ voice and Regulus wonders if he’s ever been this confiding with anyone else, because he really seems to need to get this off his chest.

“Why would you be at home?” The evening has taken a turn for sure. Regulus realizes suddenly that in all those weeks he’s known James, he has never, not once spoken about himself. Regulus knows nothing about him. Only superficial things. Just enough not to question the fact that really, he knows nothing substantial about him. Smart of him, very skilled craftsmanship. Months have passed and this is the first time Regulus notices it.

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, biting his lower lip. Regulus wishes he’d gone for psychology after all, because oh, he would have just loved to know what’s going on James’ head at the moment. He always imagined there wasn’t a lot going on in that head, but now…

“Do you know that one Oscar Wilde quote?” Regulus doesn’t know why, but for some reason he almost feels bad for James, though he’s still a filthy thief and deserves the chair for what he’s done. But now that he’s looking at him, really looking, for the first time, there’s something in James’ eyes he’s never noticed before, something he mistook for the eerie emptiness, something tragic.

“If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be… blablabla, that is your reward? I know it, it used to piss me off, made me feel personally attacked because I always thought I had things planned to the very last detail, now it gives me a little peace of mind because I have no fucking clue what I want with my life, none at all.”

Regulus’ mouth falls open. James reads? James has brains? The brain capacity to read classical literature and take something away from it? What else is there he doesn’t know yet?

“Do you still believe I can’t read?” James asks when Regulus fails to respond. “Or are you just jealous someone as stunning as I am is also as incredibly intelligent as I am.”

“Thank god you don’t have an ego the size of a lake.”

“But a heart to match it, Reggie, if only you’d let me show you.”

“Oh, fuck you, Potter-“

“You want to fuck me? That’s a request I can’t deny, love.”

Regulus rolls his eyes, putting his face closer over the pan so it won’t look too weird that his cheeks are burning red. The ‘love’ really did it for him. Why is his life just one long succession of torture? First being born into the Black family, then Sirius abandoning him, then… what made him leave home, and now he’s got a thing for some overly happy and disgustingly annoying guy? And not just any guy, but the guy who his biological brother referred to as brother? The guy that Sirius prefers over Regulus? “Don’t start this again.”

“Fine, I won’t, just tell me about your week.”

James starts to walk off, not expecting Regulus to actually speak to him. But Regulus wants to see how he’ll react to this. If he will put the pieces together. What will happen if he does. Has Sirius told him things? Will he get upset with Regulus? Break off his friendship with Sirius? How will he react? “Spent it cleaning up my friends’ house because their roommate had some friends over for her birthday that thought it’d be funny to go at the walls with pens.”

James falters, nearly tripping over his own feet and slowly turns to face Regulus. “Really? How immature of those friends.” He can pretty much hear the gears turning in James’ head. Is he figuring it out? The two boys named after stars. Both black, curly hair, light eyes, strong features. He knows Sirius’ accent is different, less of the French, that they don’t look identical any longer and their personalities are so dissimilar it’s hard to connect them as brothers, but James simply must be figuring it out.

“It’s funny you mention it, because my friend’s roommates gave me the impression they knew me because someone had told them a lot about me? Called me handsome and all that.”

Regulus’ stomach drops. A glaze appears over his eyes and his fingers itch to murder his two best friends.

Fucking idiots. What did they tell James? Oh it must’ve been bad, because if James fails to realize he’s Sirius’ little brother it can only be if this overshadows it, it really had to have been extremely memorable.

“Whatever, Potter.” He snaps at him, and reverts back to his silence. James chuckles in the most annoying way, and gets back to telling Regulus nonsense information as he always does. Football strategy, gossip, who hooked up with who, what movies he watched and his current favorite song. At the end of every sentence he throws in a question to try and get something out of Regulus, but he’s talked enough for one night and ignores him.

The night proceeds, the restaurant fills up, soon enough there’s no longer time for James to chat and provoke.

Regulus alternates between grilling and waiting tables. Running out of the kitchen to take orders and bring out plates of food, and running back in to help James.

The kitchen is hot and clammy, the lights hurt his eyes, the smells of all the different dishes being prepared mix in the air into something confusing, and for the most part unpleasant to the nose.

Glasses smash on the floor, the newer waiters panic. One of them forgets to hold the door of the freezer open and needs to be calmed down by James.

It's chaos. Madness. Food gets sent back and the moment Regulus reaches the kitchen he turns right back around and gives back the exact same plate, they haven’t got the time for any of that crap tonight.

The line outside the door gets longer and longer and the piano is inaudible over all the noise from the chatting customers.

The rush is nowhere near its end, and if anything gets worse by the minute.

Frank is near tears, the cooks shout, everyone runs around like headless chickens. The rich people waiting outside demand to be seated at once and won’t take no for an answer.

“Reg!” James shouts to get his attention as Regulus speedwalks into the kitchen to get more plates. He can balance six on his arms and can speed up the process a little by helping out.

“You didn’t specify, medium rare, or…?”

“Well done!”

“Thanks, Reg, love you too!”

“You know what I mean!”

He snaps his fingers at one of the younger waiters and gestures at him to put another plate on Regulus’ arm. There’s a new sound coming from the kitchen and he looks around until he sees James at the stove, swaying on his feet a little, humming a song.

His arms lose a little of their strength and he almost drops several plates at the sound.

Is there anything that boy can’t do?

Deep in his stomach he can feel something burning and he keeps his eye on James, making sure to look angry rather than longing, and because of it he’s the first to notice as James flips the meat and the flame coming from the stove catches the sleeve of his shirt.

Fancy as they look, the material of their shirts are shit, and this only proves it.

The flame travels in the blink of an eye and by the time Regulus has thrown the plates to the ground and reaches James’ side the fire has eaten up most of his sleeve and is at his shoulder.

James freezes, his eyes wide, and Regulus swallows down bile when he notices the momentary calm in those usually comical and warm eyes.

Everyone’s either caught up in working through the rush, or their attention has been drawn to the smashing of the plates. Luckily, automatic pilot takes over as he moves in a daze, somehow knowing exactly how to handle this as he directs James to the sink, his hands on James’ waist and thought it’s criminal to have such thoughts in a moment like this, he can’t help but enjoy the feeling of James’ body against his palms.

He puts James’ arm in the sink and turns on the water, frantically putting out the fire and splashing water all over James’ body to keep it from spreading any further. James is like a limp doll, doing as Regulus tells him without objecting.

“Take off the shirt.”

He turns now, his face is close to Regulus’ and he almost doesn’t recognize him. Whoever it is he’s holding now, it’s not James Potter. It’s not the happy, smiley boy, but a trapped animal with a sense of incoming danger flashing in the whites of his panicked eyes.

“No.”

Regulus looks down at James’ arm, the material of the shirt has melted and if they don’t act soon it might melt into his skin. There must be bad burn wounds there already and if they don’t cool this without a shirt soon he doesn’t know how bad it will be. Truthfully, Regulus doesn’t know a thing about burn wounds. The effects of fire. His parents never took it that far. All he can come up with is cooling the skin and waiting for help.

He should be crying out in pain right now, but he’s silent, and he seems clear-minded. As if the pain doesn’t bother him.

Is he enjoying this?

James is morphing in front of his eyes into something more unrecognizable with every passing second.

“Take it off, James.” He hisses at him, starting to panic as he sees James’ skin get redder and redder and the white of his shirt seeping into the wounds. Time is ticking away, Regulus is imagining all sorts of things, skin transplants, infections, horrifying scars. Death.

He doesn’t even notice the slip of his tongue, calling him James, but neither does James.

“Come on, you always boast about your abs, show them to me.” Regulus tries in a desperate attempt to get him to take off that shirt, but James shakes his head. His entire body has gone rigid, stone, muscles contracted, he’s building a wall around himself, Regulus realizes. He’s protecting himself from something.

From what?

There’s nothing left for him to do, so he takes matters into his own hands and starts unbuttoning the shirt.

“Stop that.” James reaches for his with his good hand and slaps Regulus’ hands away. He shoves Regulus away and moves toward the bathroom. Regulus slams into a cabinet at full force, James is just as strong as he looks, and he can feel a stinging pain arise where he hit the cabinet. It takes him a second to collect his thoughts, catch his breath, get up to speed with the absurdness of the situation.

Regulus runs after him, but the door is shut and locked by the time he reaches it.

“At least cool it with the fucking water!” Regulus shouts through the door.

“Regulus!” Frank comes into view, looking worse than he already did, but just then the door to the bathroom opens and James pulls him inside.

The moment he sees James in the dim bathroom light, his head down, against the old, stained tiles, he understands. He understands perfectly.

Everything falls into place.

“Give a sign when the ambulance is here.” He says softly to Frank, opening the door just a crack, only enough for him to talk quickly with Frank while keeping James out of view.

James stands shaking on his legs in the small bathroom, his shirt is in the sink, tattered and burnt, most of it gone and what is left is all black, filled with small holes. The tap is still running but James pulls his arm away and slowly steps backwards, sinking down onto the closed lid of the toilet and sitting with his back against the wall, cheeks cooling on the tiles, desperately looking away from Regulus, which he notices at once because normally James won’t look away from him even a moment. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, breathing pattern getting closer to hyperventilating.

His arm is red and slightly swollen, but as far as Regulus can see there’s no severe burn wounds, the shirt seems to have taken the worst of it and protected him.

On his uppers arms, which Regulus had secretly admired only hours earlier, are scars that make him question everything he ever thought he knew about James Potter.

Perfect stripes of white scar tissue are lined up on his skin, varying in length and depth, some looking fresher than others, piled up on one another, the skin carved open time and time again in the same spot to create a mess of thickened skin.

“I cover them up in summer.” James starts, staring out of his eyes sullenly, his voice sounds cold and empty, mentally checked out. “It’s not summer.”

Regulus no longer has a single clue as to who this mysterious boy sitting in front of him is.

“You’re not home on Christmas?” Mary’s youngest brother, Benjamin, asks her in a bit of a whiny voice, it almost makes her change all plans, give in and rush home. She can picture in fullest details his disappointed little face, sad eyes and pouty lips, clinging to the phone that’s almost larger than his head.

“No, baby, but I’ll be home a few days after and we can pretend it’s Christmas still.” She responds, carefully speaking to avoid breaking down in tears.

“I don’t want a fake Christmas.”

Mary sighs, holding the phone away from her face, trying to think of a response to that.

Her birth was a bit of an accident, her parents were young but kept her, raising her lovingly and just as well as they would’ve had they been older, but Mary didn’t get her first sibling until she was thirteen years old, the twins came first, Luke and Thomas, and then there’s Bennie, the youngest of her three brothers, he is sixteen years younger than her, when she takes him out to the park people think she’s his mom rather than his sister. They never got to grow up together in a traditional way, and now with her not living home she’s missing all the big milestones, she’s not even present for their childhoods.

Sometimes she’s afraid they’ll think she abandoned them, that she’s not there on purpose, that she’d rather be somewhere else. She fears they’ll hate her for not being around.

Other times she tells herself she shouldn’t project Sirius’ trauma onto her own life.

“Hey, buddy,” Sirius must’ve seen the hopeless look on her face and reaches over the bed, stealing the phone from her hands and holding it to his ear. Sirius moved in a year before Bennie’s birth and he’s never known any better than Sirius being his bonus older brother.

Sirius sometimes calls him Reggie on accident.

“You know what two Christmases means, right?” Sirius spins around and around on her desk chair, fiddling with the handle to make the seat fly up and down, Mary watches from the bed.

“Double the presents!” He shouts into the phone, his laughter bouncing off the walls.

The conversation goes back and forth a while, Mary waits patiently for Sirius to say goodbye and hand her the phone back.

“Sirius said he’s buying me a new game for my Nintendo!” He said it so loud, with such excitement that his voice nearly breaks her phone, sounding glitchy enough for it to make her ears drum.

“Wow! You better get him something really good in return.” Mary says with a chuckle, Sirius is grinning at her. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. She knows Sirius is grateful for how they took him in, treated him like family, but he always felt like an outsider no matter how hard they tried to include him.

Now that they don’t live at home anymore she’s getting the idea Sirius wants to distance himself from them, Mary doubts he realizes how much the young boys adore and idolize him. Yet, there’s nothing she can do to keep him there, it couldn’t be nice for him to get in the Christmas spirit with her family while Regulus is off somewhere by himself.

“Okay, we’ll see you then, bye bye, Sirius says bye too.” She clicks the call away and they sigh together, staring at each other.

“Should I go home for Christmas?” She asks him.

Sirius shrugs, “Not if you’d rather be with us.”

“I don’t know who I’d rather be with.”

“I’m not an expert when it comes to families, maybe not ask me.” Sirius shoots back, slumping in the chair and turning it from side to side, playing with the strings of his hoodie.

“Didn’t know you were gonna be a bitch about it.” Mary returns, getting up from her bed and crossing the room to flick Sirius across the head as she makes her way to the attic to get the decorations.

“You’re one to talk.” Sirius follows her up the stairs, coughing dramatically and waving his arms around to make all the dust twirl in the creepy attic light.

“Why? Because I’m a bitch?” She has her back turned to him, opening and closing boxes because apparently the Black family doesn’t believe in labeling them. Finally she finds the right pile, glass Christmas balls carefully put away and lights all tangled up in between.

“You can be.” Sirius grabs the heaviest box, the one with the fake tree, and lifts it with a grunt.

“When I was twelve, bit weird to still hold that against me after all these years.” She grabs a few boxes and follows him down the stairs, peeking over the edge of the boxes to make sure she’s not tripping and tumbling down the stairs.

When Mary started secondary school all she wanted was to be popular, have many friends, fit right in, be as everyone else, and have all the boys fall in love with her. How did she achieve that? By acting as the popular girls did. She knew it wasn’t nice or right, but it made them popular, and it did the same for her.

It was more difficult for her to fit in than for the other girls, she had to put in double the effort, always working harder than the others did to be liked and accepted. On the inside she struggled with who she was and how she differed from the others, she was insecure, no matter how confident she looked, and tore herself down all the time. She wasn’t blonde, didn’t have blue eyes, and in her small town there were still plenty of people who looked at her warily when she passed them on the street. She was often a last choice, overlooked on purpose, almost avoided.

And she didn’t like boys. Didn’t swoon over them like the other girls, put up posters on her walls. She liked girls, she knew it was not the norm, knew how others would likely judge her for it, how she judged herself for it. For all that she was and she couldn’t be.

It was easy, too easy, to say the things she said to herself to others, be as mean outwardly as she was on the inside. That step from despising yourself for not fitting in, not being the norm, the standard, to despising others for being the step was too small, too easily done. Being kind seemed equivalent to flying all the way to the moon, but being judgmental, mean and negative was simple, almost natural. She had something to say about everyone, and it often wasn’t anything nice.

She could be a massive bitch, she’s aware, painfully aware, and horribly ashamed of how she would behave, the things she said and did, how she must’ve made others feels, but it’s in the past. She grew up, she learned, she changed, she apologized to those she really wronged and now spends every day working really hard to be kind and good. Every night she reflects on her day, looks at her actions from a removed point of view, and decides what she can improve tomorrow, in what ways she can be even better.

It's not an excuse, but it is an explanation, and if she could turn time back she would in a heartbeat, but no one has that privilege. All she has in influence on now is the present and the future, and no one works harder to be kind, positive and accepting than she does.

Mary was a coward, now she wakes up every day and tries to be courageous.

Being reminded of who she was, how mean and awful she was, it’s like stabbing her right in the back.

She no longer identifies with that Mary, and doesn’t wish to think of her often.

Sirius still brings it up. He always thought it was comical and didn’t see how her tripping the weird kids in the hallways could in any way be hurtful. Oh, all the people she hurt back then, in her effort to fit in, it makes her sick.

People from her old school still see her as the rude person she used to be and there is no way she will ever be able to express how genuinely she hates herself, how she will never forgive herself for what she did.

She just wishes people would stop holding it against her.

She changed.

“I’m sorry, I know. I wasn’t the nicest guy myself.” Sirius plops the tree down in the living room, Lily and Remus are watching some romcom, Peter isn’t allowed to join because he’ll talk along with it, but he’s watching from a chair in the corner of the room, mouthing the words, Marlene is patiently waiting to start on the decorations and James is up in his room somewhere, tired from work.

“Not at all.” She agrees. If she was bad, Sirius was worse. Always taking things too far. He came from a boarding school where he’d been able to behave himself like a prince, and when his mom after much begging agreed to let him go to a public school with normal kids, he didn’t quite know what hit him. Sirius jokes about it occasionally, how she must regret allowing him to go there, since it was the beginning of his separation from that family. Had he continued to go to that boarding school he might never have turned to rebellion, but gone on to enjoy his luxurious life.

It’s probably why Regulus was forced to stay in the boarding school, kept away from Sirius.

“Hey, you know my roots lie in Sodom, growing up in a family like that would’ve made anyone mean. You should be thankful you never properly met Reggie, he was the worst of us.” He’s grinning that cheeky, careless grin that hides perfectly how he really feels about all of it. Both of them know that Sirius’ jokes about his upbringing come from truth, he really did grow up in a wicked society, full of immorality, sin, destruction.

“He’s in Paris.” Sirius says suddenly, when they walk up the stairs a second time. “That means he didn’t get out, right?”

“It could. There’s gotta be a reason for the lack of updates.” Mary doesn’t want to speak the words into existence, but the fact that the noble house of Black hasn’t boasted about their heir’s admittance into any prestigious university can’t mean any good. He got out, in her opinion that’s for sure, she just doesn’t know whether he did alive and well or in a coffin.

“People can change, I know it, we did.” She adds.

Sirius waves it off, even now after all this time he still doesn’t really want to discuss any of his childhood shit with her, he keeps it close to his chest, lets it eat at him. One day in the future something will trigger all of the memories, it will ruin him, all come exploding out and take him down in the blast.

“Yeah, yeah sure. Marlene!” He shouts down the stairs, “Come help us with the last of it!” Marlene’s footsteps come stomping up the stairs, Sirius has that look on his face that tells her he’s pissed at her.

Mary snorts, what else can she do? She’s been living with him for nearly nine years now, she knows him through and through, she can recognize his crazy moods from miles away. He can go from rock bottom to pure euphoria in a second’s time. He cares more about adventure and brief happiness than life. He doesn’t hold back, ever, doesn’t know how. Has never been told no.

She knows about his jokes, his arrogant cocky behavior, his pranks, his sneers, his defense mechanisms, his strategies to keep others at a distance, she knows the mood swings make him feel in control, he holds all the cards, he gets to decide the vibe in every room, he’s powerful. Every moment with him is a moment on a ship in uncharted waters, constantly between Scylla and Charybdis, never quite comfortably safe.

“You weird boy, always going from one extreme to the next. You should get yourself checked out for bipolar personality syndrome.” She tries to bring it softly. It was going to have to be brought up some day anyway. She’s researched it all, and Sirius has the symptoms, it’s best he gets helped before he can do something really stupid, snap, do one of his impulsive things he does, but take it too far. The torch the other day was the last straw, she’s just not sure what he’s capable of in those moments and it scares her.

“I’m not bipolar, Mary. I’m a human.” He sneers back, glaring at her.

“So?”

“I don’t believe in mental illnesses.”

“That’s stupid.”

“There’s no point in labeling everything, we’re all people with brains, it’d be weirder if they all worked the exact same.” He kicks at a box, flipping her off.

“You mean in the same way you don’t like the label gay?” She says, does he really think that she hasn’t seen how he looks at Remus? He knows perfectly well how terribly afraid Mary was to be openly gay back at home, because she knew just how vicious kids could be. After all, she’d bullied quite the amount of people for being gay. It felt like a sin, weighing her down, having to hide who she truly was all that time, sacrificing every aspect of human decency just to fit in. It felt like selling her soul to the devil, and maybe it was like that a little.

She’s overcome it with his help, out of all people, he was the one to make her realize she could just be whoever she wanted to be and people wouldn’t mind. Finally she broke free out of that popular girl prison and became who she was. She got into sewing and fashion, photography, expressing through art, and now she’s here. Dating the sweetest, funniest, most beautiful girl on the planet, someone who’s so easily accepting of everything, so sober, like her other half, soulmate, whatever bullshit a person would like to call it. All her life she believed she’d never have the guts to be in love with a girl, accepting a boring loveless marriage with a man but longing for more, she’s got so far, so far from who she was.

Sirius was the first person she told. It was hard not to, since they were dating each other and the sparks were lacking, massively. They continued to keep up the fake relationship all throughout high school so that their classmates wouldn’t realize how strange it was for the most popular girl in the school to never want to kiss a boy. He kept the secret dutifully, never once let on they weren’t actually dating. She’d be the last person on earth to make fun of him for being gay, or treat him differently, or any of the things he might be afraid of.

“Maybe you should just focus on your own issues, yeah? Overcome that fear of being a bitch by being one from time to time, it won’t kill you.” Sirius stares at her, unblinking, it might work on others but it won’t on her.

“Maybe you should learn to take care of yourself for once instead of enjoying that pathetic self-sabotaging you do. That bitchy enough for you? You deserve more than that, Sirius. I wish you could see what a lovely person you actually are.” She sneers back, catching the way his shoulders sag. That wasn’t fair of her, he doesn’t like it when people raise their voice around him, but sometimes it’s necessary to get through to him.

Marlene joins them, grabbing the last boxes.

“We having a therapy session?” She asks, looking from Sirius to Mary, “My parents made me choose who to live with in front of a full court room when they divorced.” She says it like it’s a joke, walking ahead of them and descending the stairs. “I picked mom!” She tells them, looking over her shoulder.

“Why are we all so bad at communicating?” Mary thinks out loud, as they enter the living room, it makes Sirius snort, thank god, hopefully they can be normal together the rest of the night.

“I’ll go get James, he loves decorating.” Sirius is already halfway through the door when Lily jumps up from the couch and tells him to come back.

“He’s tired from work, just leave him until he comes on his own.” She says quickly, Sirius turns, looking confused.

“He worked yesterday, how’s he still tired?”

“And you never worked a day in your life, let him be.” Lily shoots back, grabbing a ball of ribbons from one of the boxes and untangling them, she glances at Mary and raises her eyebrows, probably wondering if Mary will tie them in her hair.

“All right, calm down, ginger.” Sirius holds up his hands and walks back into the room, plopping himself down on the couch, arms crossed, face sour, with an aura that says, ‘fuck all of you, I will not help you one bit’.

“Good one, Lils.” Mary whispers in Lily’s ear as she ties her hair up in the ribbon, Lily turns back to wink at her, taking a golden ribbon and tying it into a bow, which she puts in Mary’s hair.

“I want to do the tree topper!” Marlene exclaims, rifling through the contents of the box until she’s found it.

James lies flat on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and squinting his eyes against the big light. All he can think of is the headache it’s giving him, but he can’t find the strength within him to get up and turn it off.

His arm stings, it’s all bandaged up and though he wasn’t badly harmed in the accident, Regulus now knows all about him. He may as well have sawed open his skull and offered him a peek inside.

He’s going to have to quit, because there’s no way he’ll be up to face him again. No one on this planet knows about what James does when life gets so overwhelming he leaves reality. After twenty years of perfecting his skill he can no longer tell apart dreams from reality, the border between imagination and truth has faded into nothing, and he’s lost his belief in the existence of life as if it were a religion. The only action capable of pulling him back into reality, what he perceives as reality, is to cut. The only thing that keeps him sane in times of burnout, mania, depression or when he’s overwhelmed, is to cut.

It's one of the may secrets he planned to take to the grave, and now someone knows.

He might as well end it all.

Tomorrow he leaves for home, tonight they have a Christmas dinner with the house, in two weeks he has several large projects to hand in, he has to see his family, go on walks, to Christmas markets, ice skating, shopping, socialize around the clock. He can’t remember the last time he felt somewhat relaxed, hasn’t read a book, watched a show, or done anything for himself in weeks. His head is constantly overflowing with what’s to come and what has been.

Mentally, he’s drained entirely. So drained, the thought of getting out of bed and turning off the big light steals away his breath and leaves him with tears pooling in his eyes.

He’s afraid this feeling will never leave, and knows it is the truth. It might go at times, but eventually, it always returns. Mental illness is the gift that keeps on giving.

Regulus knows. Regulus saw, and James just left him in the restaurant without giving him any explanation.

He’s dreading the long drive home. He doubts he’ll be able to talk tonight. Let alone eat.

Ever since he came home from the hospital last night he’s locked himself up in his room. He hasn’t even told anyone what happened at work and claimed to be so exhausted from the busy night he would sleep through both the night and the day.

Instead he’s been on his bed, wide awake, blinking against the large light, shivering on top of his blankets, all night and all day.

What will he do?

He doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t want to get out of bed, shower and put on clean clothing. He doesn’t want to go back to university in two weeks and start the whole cycle again.

Waking up disappointed, zoning out, daydreaming, counting down the minutes, telling himself to make it to lunch, to the end of the school day, make it to home, through dinner, force himself to get ready for bed and wait impatiently to fall asleep, childishly hoping that when he wakes up everything will have changed, only to wake up just a tad more disappointed and miserable than the day before.

If there’s anything you can trust the brain to do at all times, it’s to protect, to make things better than they seem and to take off the rough edges, even in brains like his. It’s as if there’s two sides to it, the one putting him in trouble, causing all the damage, and the one trying to contain the damage.

It started when he was young, younger than he can remember, the excessive daydreaming, and it hasn’t stopped since. It doesn’t matter where he is or what he’s doing, whether he’s engaged in a conversation or sitting in class, he is always daydreaming, always imagining something better. A version of him he likes, a life he’d deem worth living. Anything that’s not reality.

He's let it come to the point where real life can only disappoint him terribly, and the longing to that other reality grows stronger with each passing minute.

The future seems like something fake, because nothing will ever live up to the dreams, so what is even the point in deciding on a job? Working hard in university? Trying his best when nothing will ever compare to what he really wants? He’s not attracted to girls because they’re never like the ones he dreams of, he doesn’t like to look in the mirror because that’s not what he looks like in the dreams, he’s not in the right place, and has stopped living life because it’s much more fun to mentally be somewhere else.

Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality. It’s growing into a weapon against his soul.

It causes time to do strange things. Time stretches ahead of him like impossible mountains he has to climb, the seconds tick away so slowly and the days last for eternities, but then when they’re done, it all seems to warp and shrink and before he knows it years have passed.

He blames fairytales, the books and the movies, they always resonated with him. He felt alone and misplaced and enjoyed the stories of Wendy finding Neverland, Alice Wonderland and Lucy Narnia, feeling like there might be hope for him still and he’d find his true destination too someday. But the day never came and now he’s an adult who believes in magic.

Hoping that maybe the universe, or any of the things he doesn’t quite believe him might take pity on him, and relieve him of his misery, make things better, like they are in his dreams. He hopes for a miracle, the implosion of a star, aliens finding earth, an invention in science, anything that can make his dreams come true, but nothing ever happens.

Everyone else moved on. No longer believe in magic, grew up and old and mature and as the world expects them to be. They grow out of being a kid in ways James doesn’t think he can.

And now? Now he’s dreaming his life away.

He spent his prime developing years away from earth, and now he feels so behind on everyone, and much as he tries there’s no chance of catching up. He’s missed out on too much.

Life seems to be happening in a place he doesn’t know, at a pace he can’t follow.

One day he’ll wake up and discover himself a real, alive person, and his dreams will have died.

In his teenage years it was fine, he could let his parents cook, clean, do his administration, help with school, communication, make calls and emails for him, baby him to the point where he can’t do a single thing on his own. But now he’s in his twenties and needs to get his shit together, and do it quick, because no one except him will create his own future. If he doesn’t, his life will be shit, useless, wasted away, it makes him sick.

There’s no more time left, it’s running out, he’s only twenty and he can feel is slipping through his fingers. Every second of daydreaming is one not spent on anything useful, useful in the real world. Before he knows it, he’ll be eighty years old without having achieved anything.

Is he even alive? Is everything a trick of his brain? How is he ever supposed to figure out what he is? What any of it is?

Is there even a quality to his life? To his being on this planet?

Would it be such a bad thing to put an end to all of it?

What else is he supposed to do? Live out his life like a prison sentence?

“James.” Peter softly knocks on his door. “James, are you awake? Sophia’s here, but I’d be more than happy to kick her back out on the street.”

He covers his face with his hands, rubbing at his eyes until he sees stars and fireworks, bursts of light swirling through the darkness and getting sucked into a whirlwind he hopes will take him too.

“James? Can I come in?”

“Sure- but, what is she doing here? I didn’t invite her.” He croaks, his voice sounds alien, he quickly gets up, sitting on the edge of his bed, dragging his hands through his hair and putting a fake smile on.

The door opens and Peter steps in, all dressed up for the dinner in his favorite Christmas sweater, in the jeans he usually saves for presentations at school and other fancy events.

“Jesus, James. What the fuck happened to you?” He chokes out, when he catches sight of James’ arm.

“Oh nothing, shirt caught on fire.” James waves it off as he does with everything, talking lightly, like it’s nothing. He puts his feet down and walks through the room, yawning and stretching like he just woke up, and looks through his wardrobe for some clean sweatpants, he’s still wearing his work suit.  

“Hold on a second.” Peter rushes out the door and returns moments later with the first-aid kit, he opens it up on the bed and starts digging through it, throwing bandages, painkillers and all sorts of other things on the sheets. “Here!” He holds up a pack of band-aids for children and flips through it until he finds the Spider-man one, carefully sticking it on the bandage that covers James from his fingers to his shoulder.

“That better?”

“Much.” He groans, but in reality it only makes him feel worse. If only he could just tell someone about what he’s going through he might feel so much better, they would listen to him with care and love, yet he can’t push the words out of him though he tries, so, so hard.

The words he feels don’t exist and he’ll spend the rest of his life looking for them in complete solitude.

He’s stuck looking like sunshine and feeling darkness.

“Now, go downstairs and send the antichrist back to hell before she initiates Armageddon while I make you a cup of tea, okay? Vanilla? Or- oh, maybe something cold? Wouldn’t want to bring back trauma.”

“Thanks, Pete, water’s fine.” He grimaces at him and mentally prepares himself for whatever the fuck it is that brought Sophia here uninvited.

The bitch, showing up without telling him first, just dropping by as if he’s got seas of time just waiting to spend on her. And right now of all times.

Does she think she is entitled to his everlasting attention like that? As if she can just call upon him whenever she’d like and he’s waiting to assist her.

Already he was dreading the day, the week, the week after that, the months to come and every second of his life he still has to live, he’d have loved to just sit in his room and wallow in self-pity for the rest of the day and now she shows up like that?

He can hardly contain the rage he’s feeling right now and clenches his fists into tight balls, stomping down the stairs and taking deep breaths to keep from smashing in the wall.

Downstairs he can hear Marlene at the door, likely talking to Sophia. “You see, Anna, it’s not so much your appearance that opposes him, it’s your personality he just can’t stand.” In her accent it sounds almost comical and no response comes from Sophia. When he enters the hallway Marlene runs into the kitchen and he’s alone with the antichrist.

“What?” He sneers at her when he pulls open the door.

She’s standing on the porch, it’s snowing outside and her footsteps are getting covered already.

How did he ever allow himself to get caught up with such a girl? Someone who makes fun of his friends, won’t let him talk about the things he likes, shows him off like he’s a prize she won and most definitely uses him for both status and his body.

He knows why, it’s because he’s utterly and pathetically in love with the idea of being in love and the other person returning those feelings. It makes him real. There’s nothing more human than to love, so if he can do that, he must not be an alien, right? He craves to be understood, accepted unconditionally, all the things he lacks himself, is unable to. He’d rather someone else do the hard work for him, that’s just who he is. Horribly dependent on other souls, seeking out approval eternally, what else is the point in being on this planet and living this life?

“Why the fuck do I have to hear about this dinner party from someone else?” Her eyes look so unkind, her face is all pointy and shadowy, and if he saw her on the street he’d walk past her without glancing at her twice.

“Because you weren’t invited.” The mask is down, the curtains has fallen and the play is over. She’s been bitching at him to open up a little for months, and he will happily fulfill her wish of seeing the true him. Bet she’ll be running out the street soon?

“And that Dorky-“

“Dorcas.”

“She was?”

“Yes, she was invited. She actually likes all of my friends, contrary to you.” He steps outside, his socks getting soaked in the melting snow and shuts the door behind him, directing her a little further away from the house because he doesn’t want his friends to know he can get mad too. He will be brutally honest to her tonight, and he will enjoy it. For the first time in his life he doesn’t give a fuck about the person he’s talking with, and he won’t make himself prettier and easier for her sake any longer.

Let her gossip, let her tell everyone. At least they will all know he is a freak and finally leave him alone. No more pretending to like those assholes, no more spending energy he doesn’t have on making them accept him.

The cold seeps into his feet and his arm starts to tingle in a very uncomfortable way. He’s going to do this quick and ruthless, rush his way through dinner and cancel the trip back home. Fuck everyone, he’s doing perfectly fine on his own.

Nothing’s real anyway.

“You are a fucking overgrown child…”

“Sure.”

“…The most egocentric person I have ever laid eyes on…”

“Naturally.”

“…You only call me when you’ve got that strange fucking look in your eyes and ignore me the rest of the time…”

“No.”

“…Yes you do, you won’t tell me anything about yourself, you’re completely closed off-“

“So I’m the only problem in this relationship?”

“I wouldn’t even call this a relationship!” She cries out, the snow sticks to her fake lashes and he loses himself in imagining the satisfying pops that will come from ripping them off.

“Right, okay, it’s just me. Everything’s my fault. Fine.” He barks out, he’s very mindful of the way he speaks. Spent most of his childhood in front of the mirror, practicing face expressions, activating muscle memory, making voice recordings to find which one makes him sound the most like a real, a nice person. He knows when he wants to his face and words can kill.

She shrinks a little, her shoulders sagging, and the euphoria he feels is overwhelming, but it’s followed up closely by disgust. Who is he if not goodhearted James Potter? A mean monster? The very thing he despises?

He hates himself.

More than anything he wishes he could actually be the person people think he is. Always happy, joking, caring and kind, never negative, has never had a bad thought in his head and would rather bite off his own hand than be rude to anyone. Yet, that’s not who he is, not really. Not all of the time. Sometimes, when he gets like this, he no longer cares what he says or does.

If only the thing in his brain wasn’t there. If only the parasite could be killed with a simple medicine. Life’s not like that.

He fears getting angry, he is scared of himself when he is, because with each time he does he loses a little part of himself that’s kind and good. His personality changes, his being flips over, he loses control and becomes mean, his words, as always thought through to the very last syllable, turn into weapons.

“Well, it kinda is! I get the feeling you don’t even like me, or spending time with me-“

“And you know what! I don’t! We have nothing in common, I don’t like your personality, I’m not attracted to you, I’m only with you because I hate to let people down and I’m a pathological people pleaser! You wine and you moan and you have something to say about everyone and everything and it’s never positive and I’m getting so fucking sick of being around someone as negative as you! You suck all the happiness from the air wherever you go.” It’s a force coming from deep within him, stronger than his own will and far out of his reach. He’s no longer in control and will have to sit out the stream of destruction bursting from that dark place inside of him he tries so hard to hide.

“Crying about having a headache and making yourself look all pathetic… it makes me sick! I have a headache all day, every day, with no end to it, have you ever heard me complain? No! That’s for weak and pathetic people and I can’t stand it when I see someone make a victim out of themselves like you do. I fucking hate witnessing weakness, and that’s the only thing I see when I look at you. A gust of wind and you trip, a paper cut and you almost make me take you to the hospital. It’s fucking ridiculous.” These are words he would never, ever say out loud. Is he saying them out loud? Is this really happening?

Who even is he?

“You make fun of Lily for expressing herself through clothing without giving a fuck what people think of it, you make fun of disabled people- is something off about me?” The idea pops into his mind, this will scare her away, if the rest doesn’t already.

She looks taken aback, he can just tell she fails to recognize him any longer, like Regulus did yesterday, but she steps on snails in the streets and likes to flaunt with her designer clothes if they come across someone homeless, so why has he put such value to her opinion of him for this long? So what if she sees a monster if she looks at him?

“What do you mean?”

“When you’re around me, do you think there’s something that’s just a little off?”

Something shifts in her demeanor, and it’s all the confirmation he needs. She sees it, has noticed it. “Maybe, I don’t know-“

A smile creeps onto his face, there’s an odd sense of satisfaction to be found in self-sabotaging, and he relishes in the metaphorical nail he’s hammering into his own coffin. “That’s because I have autism! How about that! I’m one of those people you make fun of all the time! Autism, OCD, anxiety disorders, you hate it when I pick at my nails, right? That’s what I do because it’s not socially accepted to have Tourette’s and I need to be doing something!”

“But you don’t-“ She begins, the all too familiar questions it raises. You don’t look like one? If only there was a look for mental illness people might finally take his struggles seriously, rather than accept he’s maybe a little odd which makes him more interesting to most, but no one can accept he is disabled.

No one sees the battles he fights against himself. The ongoing war up in his mind. Him against the illness, against the codes in his DNA that caused the malfunctioning of his nerve system.

They don’t see he is running out of artillery and ammunition, the troops shrinking in numbers, hiding in the shell holes and pretending to be somewhat okay as the bombs fly overhead.

As he gets older and sinks deeper into it, it gets harder to fight. He’s tired.

Real armies might go on a leave, move away from the front to regain their strengths, but in James’ mind there’s no such thing, he’s always there in the trenches.

Of course James doesn’t seem autistic, he orchestrates every aspect of his being, every second he is alive, down to his very own thoughts, even pretending to himself. He lives off a script. Every move, every word is calculated to an extent no one but people like him can comprehend. Society won’t accept him otherwise.

He wants to be the bright, glittering sunshine-filled perfect person that people think he is so bad that sometimes he thinks he wouldn’t mind if he’d implode and burn into ashes in his effort to get there. But who’d love the empty, black space that a dead star leaves behind? No one.

It’s tiring.

“There we go.” He mutters to himself, so that Sophia doesn’t hear.

“You don’t look autistic.” She blurts out, her eyebrows knit together and he wonders if she’s looking at him like that because she’s looking for a sign. Something that gives it away. Or is she wondering how it’s possible she spent as much time with someone like him without clocking it?

Some people think it’s contagious.

“Because I’m conventionally attractive? Because I can mask well? Because I don’t wear clothing with trains on it and fit your view of someone with autism?”

“Well, everyone’s a little autistic, I doubt you’re one of those, James.”

“Everyone’s nauseous sometimes, does that make everyone pregnant?”

She opens her mouth but it falls closed just as quickly, there’s nothing she could possibly say back to that.

“And as to the not wanting to spend time with you, I simply don’t have the energy to put up with you. You make me want to claw my eyes out of my skull and I need several days to recover from seeing you. And you know what, Sophia, even if I had two extra days in the week, I still wouldn’t spend them on you.”

His chest is heaving, he’s breathless and feels he’s never said so much in so little time. He can talk just fine, about nonsense things, other people, sports, the latest news, but he’s never spoken his mind like this, and it feels like a rush, he’s riding a high and longs to get back inside and, join dinner and tell his dear friends something he’s never said out loud before.

“So it’s over?” He can see the muscles in Sophia’s jaw work as she grinds them together, biting back her disappointment and hurt, and you know what? Fuck it. If he spends his life pleasing people and forgetting about himself, is that even his life?

“Yes it’s fucking over, now get the fuck out of here so I can have dinner with my friends.” He barks at her, and without giving her a second glance or another minute of his attention he turns around, shuffling on his frozen toes through the snow.

At the kitchen window he can see all of his friends, clammy hands on the windows, piled on top of one another to see what’s going on. He gives them a smile and a wink, signifying it’s all fine.

“What happened?”

“Did you break up with her?”

“Is the wicked witch defeated at last?”

He is being bombarded with questions as soon as he steps through the door, they form a circle around him and seem to be holding back their glee.

“Yeah, it’s over.” The rush he felt earlier subsides, doesn’t this just prove what he’s always known? That in the end, his illness weighs more than who he is? Or that maybe, he is his illness? No matter which is which, his therapist was right, relationships don’t last for him and he’ll likely end up dying all alone, without ever having known true love.

“Yes!” Lily jumps up, throwing her hands in the air. “No! I mean no! I’m so sorry, James!” She corrects herself, but Marlene is running through the hallway, whooping and whistling and all the others look very pleased as well.

“Don’t worry, I liked her about as much as the rest of you.”

“So, not at all? You hated her and prayed on her downfall every night before bed?”

“…yes, Pete, exactly, how’d you know?”

Peter puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugs, “Oh, I don’t know, just got the idea you might from the spiritual connection we share.”

“Well, I’m hungry.” He states, pushing himself through the wall of bodies and taking a seat at the dinner table, he takes a deep breath and exhales dramatically, shaking his upper body a little, it’s supposed to help literally shake things off, or so people say, and that’s just what he needs. Remus spent all day cooking and the girls truly outdid themselves in the decorations. It would be a bit of a bitchy move to go up to his room and sulk in the darkness.

The kitchen looks like the set of one of those cheesy romcoms that James adores, and that he will force down Sirius and Remus’ throats the following two weeks. Apparently the attic was filled to the brim with decorations and none of it was left up there. There’s a red sheet over the table, with golden stars and trees on it, tall candles drip their wax onto it and the flames flicker in the slight breeze coming from the moving of their bodies. The Christmas tree is in the corner of the room, dazzling with warm lights reflecting in the shiny balls. Though for now the presents are underneath they will be taking most of them home tomorrow to open on Christmas day itself.

Sirius has moved his record player to the counter and it’s playing his collection of old Christmas music, nostalgic and just the tiniest bit of melancholic, not quite enough to hurt, but it gets him in his feels, and thank god his mental state is far from stable because in the blink of an eye the sadness of the day is forgotten and he feels his chest swell with happiness at sitting here with his friends and share this holiday with them, how lucky are they?

As awful as it is that he can fall into fits of uncontrollable rage at the slightest provocation, without any warning, it’s quite pleasant to feel it all fall away from him in the blink of an eye.

Sirius lays his hands on James’ shoulders, moving his own head next to his so they’re ear to ear, cheek to cheek. “You okay, James?” He whispers, squeezing his shoulders slightly.

“Allright.” He whispers back, reaching his hand up to pinch Sirius’ nose, who attempts to bite his fingers in an act of revenge.

“Just remember I like you. Doesn’t take dating a bitch to be liked.” Sirius says it quietly enough for the others not to hear, presses a kiss to James’ cheek and starts prancing through the kitchen as he always does, boasting about the decorations and the cocktails he claims he made.

“But, hey, James, maybe next Christmas you can bring Loverboy?” Mary grins at him as she takes a seat opposite of him at the table, her elegant manners and way of moving evident as she slides onto the chair, folding her hands together and resting her chin atop of them, wiggling an eyebrow.

James swallows, looking down at his plate, “He’s worse than Sophia.” He breathes out, fingers crawling up his arm, he tries not to scratch but it’s so itchy, he wishes Regulus hadn’t seen him like that. He wishes he didn’t have to quit, he was so close, so close to getting Regulus to like him.

“At least he’s direct enough to attempt to murder you instead of sitting in a brooding silence staring daggers at everyone!” Sirius cries out, flipping through his collection of Christmas classic records. “He must be really goodlooking to still have you drooling over him after that.” He looks over his shoulder, winking at James, and James just sighs, gives a small nod and hopes they can stop talking about Regulus now.

Once everyone is seated and the dishes are carefully put in position, Lily takes a moment to make pictures with her camera, and one by one they pose and beam at the flash, struggling to keep their eyes open and blinking against the after effects of the bright light.

“We’ll be showing our children these pictures one day.” Lily says, and James has to bite down on his lip real hard because he knows Lily well enough to recognize that quiver in her voice, and one thing’s for sure, if Lily so much as drops a tear he is gone for and will be a snotty mess for hours to come.

“They’ll be so jealous of how attractive we all were.” Mary adds with a chuckle, wrapping her arm around Lily’s waist and pressing the sweetest kiss on her cheek. How could he ever have despised Mary when she makes Lily happier than he ever could? He loves that woman! Let her stay forever and deliver Lily nothing but beauty in her life!

The room heats up and the windows get foggy, they can only just see the snow falling outside and trade dishes, loading their plates and praising Remus. He’s blushing and getting more uncomfortable with each compliment, and James catches the moment Sirius ruffles his hair and Remus seems to collapse into himself.

If only they could see themselves how much they like each other it’d all be so much easier.

James and Peter exchange glances, both of them aware of whatever is growing between the other two boys.

“Ugh, I’m so happy we’re getting out of here for a little.” Marlene starts, in her thick, Scottish accent, she doesn’t live that far away from here, but still decided to join the rest of them on their trip to James and Lily’s hometown. “Started the day with shoving my entire arm- up to the shoulder…” She demonstrates, tapping her shoulder at the top and looking around the table to ensure everyone understands the gravity of the situation. “All the way into a cow’s asshole!”

“Why did you have to go up its asshole?”

“Well, no it was her vagina, but still gross, and since I’m one of the shortest of the class most of me disappeared inside… and then I ended the day with a class on how to tell a pet owner their pet has to be euthanized, and they showed all these pictures of sad looking dogs- ugh!” She looks truly indignant, crossing her arms over her chest and sitting back on her chair. “And all the rest of the day we were taught about prolapses and… oh no-“ Suddenly she shoves her plate away from her.

“Remus, you’re a lovely guy, even better cook, but this sausage looks exactly like a prolapse, I can’t eat this!” She cries out, and laughter erupts all around the room.

“Can you move your fat ass?”

Marlene snorts, “Yours is way fatter, just- I can’t find the seatbelt because you’re on top of it, move!” She jabs her elbow in James’ side until he has folded himself all the way, practically into the window itself, and waits for the seatbelt to click before he moves back. It’s extremely… cozy, in the backseat. Shoulder to shoulder with Marlene who’s by far the most fidgety person to have ever walked this planet. She cannot sit still, not even a second. Constantly moving her legs, cracking her knuckles, whistling, buzzing in her seat.

“Are you sure your parents don’t mind?” Remus folds his tall figure into the front seat, having to duck even when he sits down, he hasn’t even got his seatbelt secured before he stuffs a little magazine with sudokus and word searchers into Marlene’s hands in the hopes of getting her to sit here as calmly as possible for the long eight hour trip home.

“Yes I am sure, how many times are going to ask?” James says with a chuckle, flashing Remus a smile.

“We could settle for every five minutes?”

A blur of red shoots past the car window, followed up by a shrieking Sirius, and James bonks his head against the fogged up window, sighing deeply and waiting very impatiently for the two to finally get in the car so they can get going. They have rented a van that seats eight for the next two weeks so they can drive home and back, much cheaper than flight tickets, but a lot more trouble.

Lily will drive the first bit and Sirius the last, and though James can drive too, Lily made sure he wasn’t even considered an option, knowing that the responsibility of keeping seven others safe would’ve been too much for him.

They’ve been packing all morning, running back and forth through the house, trying to fit enough clothes for two weeks in their bags, until they came to the conclusion it wouldn’t fit in the van and had to choose to leave things out. Sirius spent an hour sulking and refusing to get up from the floor when they told him he couldn’t bring his stereo and some old rock records. Remus sneakily put some extra books in the trunk when he thought no one was looking, Pete wouldn’t part with his pillow, and so on. James decided to only bring a small backpack so the rest could bring all of their stuff.

What would Regulus be doing now? Is he going home? To London, or France? Or staying here with those two strange boys they saw at Dorcas’ party? It was pretty evident he’s not a big fan of Christmas, the glare on his face was even scary to James, who’s used to much worse from him by now. So what, he’ll sit in his dirty, dark, depressing accommodation with those two scary boys like it’s any other day in the year? If it hadn’t been for what happened James might’ve invited him, jokingly, of course, Regulus would’ve never agreed. He’d even already written him up a Christmas card, but never gave it to him.

“Dorcas?” He twists in his seat, Dorcas is on the last row of seats, she looks up, pushing the heavy braids out of her face, “Did you ever meet Barty and Evan’s friend?”

She takes off her headphones, shaking her head, “Why? Do you know him?”

“No, but I got the feeling he knows me.” He doesn’t share with her that he knows it’s Regulus, and that Barty and Evan very obviously recognized him, seemingly from stories Regulus had told. They called him handsome. No, no even better, Regulus told the two boys he thought James was handsome.

So fucking close to something.

“Mmh, he’s super close with Barty and Ev, Pandora too, but he never really comes to the house so I barely ever see him, but I don’t think he knows you, James, he doesn’t really look like the type to… know people.”

“Ah, must’ve misread the situation then.” He replies with a shrug.

Sirius slams his face against James’ window, looking distressed, “Mary!” He shouts with a shrill voice. “Get your girlfriend in line!” He bonks on the window with his fists a couple of extra times to add power to his words, James can’t help but snort at Sirius’ idiocy. He’s so careless, confident, spoiled, stubborn, just slightly too dominant in his way, and all the rest too, but it’s what makes him Sirius. He’s interesting, a completely unique phenomenon, unafraid to be himself even when he can be an ass sometimes, he’s fun to be with, you can bet that with Sirius close you will never be bored. James admires him.

Pretty much immediately Lily appears behind Sirius, proudly holding up her phone and showing them all the first bad picture of Sirius that James has ever seen. It’s Sirius at breakfast this morning. Sirius isn’t the type of guy to get out of bed before the day is nearly done, but they wanted to leave early, add to that all the beer he had last night and he was sitting at breakfast like a creature from a science fiction movie with really horrible special effects. Hunched over at the table, stuffing his face with yoghurt, hair exploded like he was the long lost fifth member of Queen, eyes barely opened. Huh, he thought Sirius was one of those people who are so photogenic that it’s impossible to get a bad picture, but Lily’s just done it. She should receive an award for her hard work.

“She won’t delete it!” Sirius yelps, chasing after Lily as they take another spin through the garden, both of them shrieking and laughing.

“This is going to be the worst ride of my life.” Remus groans, slipping on his eye mask and settling in in his chair. James nods in agreement.

“Hi, mom.” James shouts through the glass as he taps on the window of the van and waves at his mom, the moment the van pulls into the driveway the front door to the house bursts open and James’ parents come running out.

With aching limbs and devastating headaches they all climb out of the van, after just having survived the longest drive of their lives, and James’ mom sprints across the path and takes his face in his hands, kissing him as if Lily and the rest aren’t standing right there. Lily doesn’t even take notice of it, since she knows how close James is with his parents, but Sirius starts shifting on his feet uncomfortably.

James’ dad follows closely, hugging him tightly and lifting him on his feet a little, and Lily chuckles, filled with anticipation to finally see her own parents again.

“This is… everyone.” James says, gesturing at the group, who all smile at James’ parents.

Euphemia looks around the group, taking in all of the faces. Lily can see the pride on her face, and knows how delighted she must be that James has finally found a group of true friends, rather than the bunch of popular kids he used to hang out with. When her eyes fall upon Lily she smiles even harder and holds out her arms for Lily to give her a hug.

“Lily, are you staying here, or going home?”

“I thought I’d take the girls on a little walk home.”

“Why don’t you leave the girls here and go yourself? I’m sure your parents would like a moment to have you all for themselves.”

Lily grins, “Have they said anything about how much they miss me?”

Euphemia hesitates, “They wouldn’t stop mentioning how much they miss you, dear, we’ll wait for your call and James will show the girls to your house.”

A small flare of stress starts in her stomach, but she keeps her posture and doesn’t show it. “All right, see you later.” After several months of never being apart, it feels very sudden and abrupt, the way they’re broken apart now, but if Euphemia thinks it’s best if Lily goes home by herself she’ll do so.

On the walk home her head is filled with all sorts of potential scenarios. In the end, the thing she keeps coming back to is that it’s just Petunia. Something to do with Vernon? Have they split? Maybe this is where they finally make up? It couldn’t be anything else because she would’ve been notified already.

“I’m here!” She announces as she walks in the door and kicks off her shoes. It’s eerily quiet at home, where usually her parents might be playing games or cooking together while Petunia and Vernon watch a show on the couch.

“Hello?” Her breathing rapidly increases, and fear grips her in the strangest way when she walks further into the hallway and starts picking up the scent of what is undeniably hospital smell.

There’s a bed in the living room, her mom and sister are seated around it, but her dad is propped up on some pillows, lying in the bed.

He’s aged at least ten years in those few months she hasn’t seen him, his bones poke at his skin, which has turned greyish, and she can see at once that he is sick, very sick.