The Ash Of My Home
Regulus has known things he shouldn't for as long as he could remember. They come to him in dreams, these visions about himself, strangers he's yet to meet, or his friends. Other times when he's awake, a sudden power seizes control of his mind as if a puppeteer has snatched the strings that bind him, his limbs freeze and his eyes glaze as pictures fill his brain and words sometimes spill from his mouth in a voice that is not his own. Luckily, those don't happen as often, as he tends to get strange looks when a voice that is not his begins to speak, even in the wizarding world where seers aren't entirely uncommon, just rarely seen in the way his gift tends to present. He's had them enough to trust what he sees and has watched the visions and dreams come true before his eyes in several aspects, even if not always in the way he expects. The clarity varies, some things don't become clear until the moment they unfold or even after, and the results remain unpredictable because fate isn't set in stone for everyone.
It was under his insistence that the Potters go into hiding after Harry was born, he'd been having horrible dreams of late; of a boy identical to the man he loves except for the cursed scar on his forehead, of a second war with their opponent stronger than he ever had been before, of a man with his face hidden in a dark cloak crossing the threshold of Potter cottage, filling the living room with green light, of a cave full of smothering darkness and a humming locket and horrible thirst.
Dumbledore hadn't needed much convincing to place the Potters under the fidelius, he knew by now to trust Regulus' visions, although he was reluctant that Lily be hidden as well, considering she was the best brewer in the Order and was responsible for most of their supply of healing potions. Regulus insisted that she would need to stay hidden as she could and would easily be used for leverage, despite her usefulness to the Order.
So it was agreed upon that Lily would brew in the cottage, and leave the finished potions in the woods behind their house, just outside the bounds of the charm, where Regulus could also drop necessary brewing supplies when needed. At first, Dumbledore suggested he be the secret keeper, but Regulus knew that he and Sirius would both be targets for Death Eaters as soon as word got around that the Potters went into hiding. And it would be all the worse for the Order if they managed to get their hands on Regulus, who they could weaponize as a seer.
Lily's first choice for secret keeper was Remus, but with him being away with the werewolf packs all the time, it didn't seem like a good idea either. They needed someone close enough not to betray them, and close enough in proximity if something happened. That was how they landed on Peter Pettigrew as secret keeper, the ruddy-cheeked blonde boy who never spoke up in Order meetings but was quick to laugh and joke while everyone mingled after, the fourth and quietest part of the marauders.
So it was, a month before Harry was born, the Potters said goodbye to their loved ones, Lily properly pregnant and James overprotective already, both petrified in too many ways to count; for war moved quickly and stole more lives than any sickness, and every goodbye could too easily become their last words to each other.
Regulus and James spent that last night together talking in circles, swinging between ignoring reality and comforting each other when they broke, taking turns being brave as they tended to do. It had felt like Regulus had just gotten him back, only to say goodbye again. There was a time, 8 months ago to be exact, that Regulus and James hadn't been together, the stresses of war had pulled their relationship taut until they snapped and they could hardly look at each other anymore. Regulus locked himself away from everyone except for when he was on missions, and James sought companionship in any way he could find to distract from their separation, war, and its greedy clutches. Lily had been a comfort to James then, one of his best friends, and it was a drunken one-night stand that led to her pregnancy, a horrible turn of the hands of fate. It was only the night, the two friends seeking distraction ended up getting far more than they bargained for.
A year passed before Voldemort came to Potter cottage, where James chased a hysterical and rapidly growing Harry on his new toy broom and Lily with all the exasperation and exhilaration of mothering two boys, gave chase with the camera, laughing when James stubbed his toe on the sofa and Harry nearly ran over the cat. A year of living off the letters from their friends, only breathing the air outside at the scheduled meetings with Regulus, and another year of war, entirely removed from it except for the news from their friends.
Lily placed the potions carefully in the hollow of the tree in the woods they used to hide stuff in, casting the spells to disillusion them and brushing off her jeans as she stood. Technically, she was only supposed to leave when meeting Regulus, but sometimes she had time to make more potions than the required weekly amount and took the opportunity to take a breather from the chaos that was often the cottage. It was suffocating sometimes, being confined to the walls of the cottage, and other times it was an idyllic dream, raising a rambunctious and carefree toddler who had no idea of the outside world, just their little family in their modest cottage.
Lily closed her eyes, allowing herself a moment of sunlight, breathing in the crisp autumn air and the smell of damp grass. As much as she loved her son and her friend, she desperately needed a break from the noise, she desperately wanted someone different to speak to, another friendly face that wasn't either of theirs.
She was telling herself she'd take only one more second when she heard the distant crack of apparation somewhere deeper in the woods. Lily's eyes snapped open, the only person she ever met here was Regulus, and he wasn't due for another few days. She scanned the trees for movement, gripping her wand and straining to hear voices, a horrible sense of foreboding creeping up her spine. She backed toward the house, wand whipping side to side as she tried to spot who it was, though Lily already knew, could feel it, the sense of something inevitable finally reaching the serenity that is Potter cottage like water lapping on the shore, and she turned, sprinting toward the house full speed, goosebumps all over.
She slammed the robin blue front door behind her, chest heaving rapidly, fear sinking into every pore of her body as James looked up at the sound, on his feet in an instant. She heard Harry's wail from upstairs, woken from his nap by the door, only a few months past a year, with three teeth and bright green eyes, with no understanding of the curse Lily had given him that was life during a war.
"Lils? What happened?"
"I heard someone apparate in, and it's not Reg. I think it's him, he's come finally for Harry," She blurted, guilt squirming in her stomach, "I was being stupid, I should've waited to meet Reg, but I wanted a break and I was lingering, and I didn't see him, but I know."
The words tumbled out in an anxious spill of words as she locked the door and checked through the curtains, peering out into their open backyard, expecting to see men in masks lining the trees by the dozen. She knew she might be overreacting, scared because she was out of bounds when she wasn't meant to, jumpy at the prospect of danger when they'd been so safe, but the hammering in her heart wouldn't stop.
"It could be Peter," James said tensely, even as he double-checked the back door was locked, peering out of the other window, and retrieving his wand from the table. They were part of the war for over a year before they went into hiding, and they knew better than to ignore gut feelings or brush off suspicions, "Something might've happened with the Order and he came to notify us, or Regulus did."
"Reg always sends a letter first, and Peter hasn't visited since Harry was born, so if he is here, that means something's wrong, and it's still not safe," Lily's breath hitched as she caught movement in the trees, the darkening sky making it hard to see much, but she was sure something was out there, waiting for them to come out or to break in.
"What?" James asked, joining Lily at her window, wand held tightly in his hand, the other hand on her shoulder.
"Someone's out there, I saw it just there," She pointed to a gap between the trees, Harry still wailing from upstairs, cries growing more and more shrill the longer he was ignored. "Someone's watching us," She whispered, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.
"Go check on Harry and stay there until I come to get you," James ordered, tan face deadly serious, a drastic change that happened sometime during the war, the ease that always graced his face in school replaced with hardness, the look of a soldier, "Barricade the door to be safe."
"I don't want to leave you alone down here, what if it is him?" Lily asked, eyes wide and terrified. If the day they had been dreading had finally come, she didn't want James to face it alone, to face him alone. "What if something happened to Peter?"
James grasped her shoulders, his deep voice even and firm, steady even as his eyes betrayed the same fear Lily's held, "Dumbledore said we were safe here, and I trust him, Peter, too. This is a precaution, we don't know what's going on yet. But- if he somehow gets in, you take Harry and my broom, and you fly out his bedroom window. Fly to a safe house, Hogwarts, Sirius' flat, anywhere far away from Godric's Hollow. Do not come downstairs and do not wait for me if he gets in, Lily, do you hear me?"
"I-" She wanted to protest, to pivot and wait for the danger to come, to fight it side by side with James like a Gryffindor would, but she needed to protect Harry, too. Her son, with his big eyes and gummy smile, his tottering walk, and severe aversion to any green food. "Okay, just be careful, please. Come back in one piece, Potter," She added uselessly, throwing her arms around him in a tight hug, tears brimming in her eyes.
They both jumped when a knock came on their door, and James ripped away from her, colorless, and shoved Lily towards the stairs, waving wildly for her to go. She fled for the stairs, hand over her mouth to muffle her sobs, something final and unyielding settling in her gut as she swung into Harry's room, closing the door and waving her wand to maneuver the bookshelf in front of it. Harry was standing in his cot, little fists wrapped around the rods, tear-streaked face pressed into the gap, mouth open in a loud shriek. She grabbed Harry out of his crib, clutching him to her chest, shushing him with a shaking voice as she heard a thunderous noise coming from downstairs, the bookshelf shaking against the door, the floor rocking underneath her, followed by a few shouts, and then, all of a sudden, utter silence. Lily realized too late that she hadn't grabbed James' broom and she was trapped.
Regulus was having tea in Sirius' flat when his arm froze midair, hand loosening on his cup without his volition, shattering to the floor as his eyes began to glaze over. A silvery, cloudy, haze fell over his vision, his brother's voice fading into the background until Regulus was surfacing in the same dream he'd had for the last year, but in more detail than ever before. He saw it in starts and stops, stutters and flashes in time.
Two cloaked figures strolled past the swinging gate door in front of Potter cottage, a bony white hand holding a pearlescent wand, and the front door blasted off the hinges, wood splinters and brick littering the floor beneath them. The cracking of bone and a scream of rage, a mahogany wand he recognized as James' lying inches from a limp hand, a familiar voice he couldn't place echoed in his mind. Dark robes brushed the stairs like the cloak of a dementor, the bringer of death, and footsteps that led to Harry's bedroom, his screams hysterical in pitch. Lily, wild-eyed with a fierce look on her face, stood before Harry's crib with her arms spread like a human shield, wand leveled at the door. A high-pitched, strained laugh, like that of a ghost, scraped out of a dry throat as another door was blown open, children's books flying and scattering across the floor, the pearlescent wand raised, and a green flash bathed the room in death, the sound of a body hitting the floor.
"-gie? Reg?"
He blinked, eyes stinging and ears ringing with screams, half slumped in his chair and his socked feet wet with spilled tea. Regulus felt drained, the power that took hold of his body receding to the place where it hides, leaving him in the wreckage and aftermath, giving Regulus back the strings as if to say, here you go, do what you will, the rest is fate.Had he just watched them all die?
"Hey!" Sirius shook his shoulder hard, not for the first time. Regulus blinked again, finally looking back at his brother, who watched him with worry clear in his eyes, "What did you see? Is it James?"
Regulus' body seemed to wake up at the mention of his name, straightening up at once, lurching forward to do something, anything. "H- He found them, Voldemort's there already or he's going to be soon. I watched them- I saw them-" Unable to finish his sentence, he leaped up in search of his wand, barely registering the wet socks or broken glass, still seeing and hearing what was to come, more than half stuck in the future and panicked in the present as Sirius spluttered next to him, trying to catch up.
"We have to tell Dumbledore! Where's Peter? Did you see him? Is he dead? Did he give them up? How did Voldemort find them?!" Sirius shot question after question at him, though Regulus was hardly listening; tearing a piece of parchment and searching through the flat for a quill, dumping the contents of his drawers out carelessly before eventually accioing one and scrawling the emergency code he'd created with Dumbledore in the event of something like this. He waved his wand over it, the edges smoldering and turning orange before vanishing into thin air, where the note would hopefully appear on Dumbledore's desk.
"Sirius!" He shouted over his brother's frantic rambling, "We don't have time to discuss it if we want to save their lives so shut your mouth and get moving! I notified Dumbledore, he'll meet us there. If Voldemort is there already that means the fidelius has likely been broken by Peter's death or- or otherwise," Regulus swallowed, unwilling to think about James' wand lying next to a limp hand, or Harry's terrified shrieks, or the sound Lily's body made as it collapsed in front of the crib. The fidelius can also be broken when those it protects are dead.
Sirius nodded, shoving his hair out of his face and grabbing Regulus' elbow as he apparated them to the woods behind Potter cottage. Even thirty feet away, Regulus could tell they were too late, Voldemort had already arrived, and what used to be their front door was a gaping hole of brick and wood and glass. They hardly got their feet on solid ground before they were sprinting, the first floor a disaster, the shattered remains of a living room. Regulus scanned the wreckage, searching and searching for that hand, for that mahogany wand, and finding it buried underneath a pile of wood.
"James," Sirius choked out, following Regulus' sightline and rushing over, dropping to his knees to dig his friend out from under the debris, shoving aside splintered wood and plaster before eventually remembering he had a wand and using a spell to remove it faster. "James, James," Sirius appeared to be chanting as he dug him out, revealing messy hair dusted with debris and a bloody gash on his cheek, closed eyes, and dirty, cracked glasses.
Regulus was about to help, eyes fixed on James' slack face, trying to overcome the horror that froze his bones in place, when he heard voices upstairs. One frantic, whining, and another wheezing and weak. Lily? Could Lily still be alive? Regulus hadn't heard the curse spoken, but the killing curse was the only one that produced that bright, damning green, but fate wasn't cemented, it couldstill change, he thought and he hoped, maybe they survived, maybe he was wrong.
Regulus turned away from where his brother was knelt over James, crying and combing trembling hands through his hair, incoherent words falling from his lips, willing his friend to get up. Regulus forced himself to turn away from the scene and started up the stairs, large cracks lining the walls dusting everything in white and glass from the gas lamps littering the stairs.
As he got closer, the voices became clearer, one of them he had heard in his vision, familiar but not Lily or James'. Neither voice belonged to Lily, he realized with a sinking feeling, listening at the top of the stairs, white-knuckled grip on his wand.
"Master, what do I do? Tell me how to help," The frantic voice pleaded, and as Regulus peeked around the corner, he realized the whinging voice belonged to one Peter Pettigrew, the secret keeper who was not dead or tortured, but alive and perfectly well, except for the obviously broken arm cradled against his chest. In his good arm, he had cradled Voldemort, shrunken and white, swathed in black robes and much smaller than the man Regulus had seen in pictures, looking helpless and half dead.
"T-Take me away," Voldemort rasped, "Take me-"
Regulus gritted his teeth, white-hot fury replacing the blood in his veins, Pettigrew hadn't died to protect them, wasn't tortured to give up the information, he was a damned Death Eater. The spy the Order had known about for months but hadn't been able to discover, even with Regulus' visions, he never saw Peter's face, but he realized he'd heard it more than once in his dreams. When he dreamt of the Mckinnon's deaths, Peter's voice was in the background, when Fabian Prewett was knocked off his broom by a stupefy, it was Peter's spell that had done it, and the same with Dorcas, Amos, and Sybill. He'd killed them all, his friends, in cold blood. Regulus cursed himself for not noticing sooner and paying more attention to the rat that was so good at being invisible. So good that nobody had suspected him for a moment.
For now, it didn't matter, Regulus shoved aside his guilt, because he was going to finish it. Nobody else would die at the hands of Pettigrew or Voldemort after tonight. He rounded the corner faster than Pettigrew could raise his wand, casting a sectumsempra simply to make him suffer for longer before he bled out. James wouldn't approve, but James was- he might be- Regulus shook himself, unwilling to think about it yet, there was a reason he wasn't a Gryffindor. Peter fell backward, deep lashes appearing all over his body, blood leaking from everywhere, faster than he could process, watery eyes wild and searching until they landed on Regulus. He choked out something, maybe an apology or plea, but Regulus ignored him, turning on Voldemort, curled on his side, the right side of his body blackened and nearly disintegrating, cursed.
Regulus crouched before him, poking the weaker with his wand, Pettigrew's death rattle was the only sound in the room besides Voldemort's wheezed breaths, "How the mighty have fallen. I would afford you last words to be immortalized, but I rather hope you will be erased from existence and forgotten by time."
Voldemort's cracked lips opened with a painful-sounding exhale, "I c-cannot be erased, my f-followers will bring me back. The prophecy-"
Regulus' lips curled into a sinister smile, "Fate can be rewritten, and I hold the quill," He said, enjoying the brief flash of fear he caught in Voldemort's eyes before casting the killing curse on the most infamous dark wizard of all time, putting an end to his reign of terror now and in the future.
With Pettigrew seconds from death, and the crumpled form of the dark lord at his feet, Regulus finally fixed his eyes on Lily and Harry, silent and still, Lily's green eyes dimmer than he'd ever seen, stuck in an expression of terror. Regulus felt his chest cave in a little, reaching out and gently closing her eyes so she didn't look quite so frightened before moving onto Harry, lying in his crib. Regulus feared the worst, he hadn't seen it happen in his vision, but Harry had been screaming then, and was painfully silent now. He reached an unsteady hand down, fingertips brushing the apple of his soft cheek, and released a shuddering sob when he felt breath ghost over his cool skin. Harry was alive, bleeding from his head and unconscious, but alive. Regulus scooped up the baby that looked so much like James, clinging to him in the destruction that was his home, surrounded by bodies. With a final look at the scene around him, knowing it would haunt his days, he left the room, trudging down the stairs, a gaping pit of emptiness threatening to swallow him when he thought about what was to come.
He was surprised to see Remus and Dumbledore there, stepping through the hole in the living room, eyes skating around the damage, Dumbledore's stuck on the child in Regulus' arms. Regulus knew that look, and he hated him for it, as if Harry were something to be studied and tested, and Regulus instinctively held Harry closer to his chest. Remus stepped forward cautiously, as if Regulus was dangerous, and maybe he was, he felt it at least, raw and unbridled.
"Can I check if Harry's hurt, Reg?" Remus asked in his soft voice, soothing like the jumpers everyone liked to steal from him.
Regulus hesitated, Harry was all that was left, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to let him go, not when James- He was purposefully not looking at where Sirius was with James, he didn't want to know, he didn't want to be haunted by any more images from tonight. He'd seen his wand and his hand under the rubble and that was enough, a glimpse of his resting face, and it was too much, he didn't want to look, and he didn't want to let Harry go. But Regulus wasn't a healer, and Harry was unconscious, so after too long, enough to be uncomfortable, he relented, handing Harry to Remus carefully.
"Why don't you sit with James and Sirius, and I'll check Harry out and get him back to you really soon?" Remus suggested, shifting the toddler so he could better see the gash on his forehead. Regulus shook his head, arms wrapping around himself, and really he wondered why he couldn't hear Sirius crying anymore, the panic in his voice seemed to have faded, but if James was gone then surely- Dumbledore's voice interrupted his train of thought, with words that made his legs give out beneath him.
"Can you tell me what happened tonight, James?"
Finally, finally, Regulus glanced over to where James' body last was, unconscious and broken under the rubble, but instead found him sitting against Sirius, curled in on himself, face blank, but his chest was rising and falling with his breaths, and his beautiful eyes were open, glasses still cracked. The force of Regulus' relief pulled him to the ground like gravity, another resounding sob escaping him, he hadn't known he was still alive.
James glanced up at the sound, faraway eyes widening a little as he recognized Regulus and his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides like he wanted to crawl his way over to Regulus and hold him, but he couldn't. Instead, Regulus crawled to James, hardly ashamed, stripped down to his barest instincts now, desperate and raw, drawn as he always was to James. As soon as he was close enough, James' hands were tugging at his shirt, pulling him until Regulus folded around him, both of their hearts thrumming in their chests, Regulus kissing his shoulder where they met.
"Merlin, I thought you were gone. I saw- I didn't know," Regulus breathed around the words, his heart expanding in his chest.
James shuddered against him, hands fisted in his sweater, "I'm still here, I-I'm still here."