simply breathe
The first thing James felt was pain- overwhelming, all-consuming pain.
It roared through his body, burning along his nerves in a searing reminder that he was still alive. His skin was charred and raw and each breath scraped through his lungs like razor blades, the sting of cool fresh air a cruel contrast to whatever hell he had just escaped from.
Slowly, he cracked his eyelids open. He turned his stiff neck to the side and saw a hill. Grass. Nothing decipherable.
When he turned the other way, he saw the edge of a cliff. He could hear water roaring beneath it, crashing against the shore before reeling back and doing it all over again in an endless self-destructive cycle.
The sky was a dull grey, lifeless and cold, and the cold breeze that swept across his skin was unforgiving, his tattered clothes doing nothing to protect him.
Unbelievably, the only thing he could do was cry.
Tears streaked hot down his soot-stained cheeks, spilling from a place caught between agony and euphoria. He let out a shuddering breath that cracked into something between a laugh and a sob, because he was alive. Somehow, against all odds, he had made it out.
And now-
Now, he knew . He knew what had happened to Regulus. He knew what needed to be done. He had a way forward.
“Gods,” he whispered, wiping his face with shaking hands. Slowly, he forced himself upright, reorienting himself. His limbs trembled with the effort, but he pushed through it, limping toward the cliff’s edge.
He took a seat, right on the precipice, letting his feet dangle weightlessly.
It was clear that he wasn’t going to have any downtime to recover from what just happened because Azrythar punted him directly over to the cave that Regulus had lost his memories in and he had no choice but to enter it as well. He felt like a slave to forces more powerful than he.
He shut his eyes and breathed against the weight of the world.
____________
The sand was firm under his feet, densely compacted by the dark blue roiling waves that had pulled back, rearing to crash onto the shore where he stood any second now.
Wind pushed at James’ back as though it were urging him into the cave mouth before him, pushing him into the inky darkness that pooled at its mouth.
This was unlike the entrance to the Holloch caves entirely. That had been small and unassuming but this rather resembled a wound in the earth.
A jagged crack, as if some ancient god had struck the mountain with a cleaver broke through the side of the cliff. The opening was tall and narrow—a dark, yawning triangle. No matter how hard he tried, James couldn’t see into it.
Had Regulus really done this? Had he really stood here, alone, and thought this was worth it?
James didn’t often doubt Regulus. But near the end—near his so-called death—he’d made a series of increasingly doubtful choices.
He stepped forward, his hand running against the wall to steady himself but it wasn’t long before his hand fell through and the corridor opened up into a massive cavernous space in the centre of the cliff.
The skylight cast a stark, unforgiving spotlight onto the marble pedestal in the centre of the Lake below, the centerpiece of this grotesque production. Around it, the Inferi roiled in attendance, an audience of the damned, waiting as if the next act of this play was about to begin.
Without them, this place might have been quiet. Peaceful, even. But their presence corrupted everything. Their whispering moans, their ceaseless hissing, the wet sound of flesh shifting against flesh—it scraped against his skull in a relentless symphony.
He took a hesitant step forward and failed to contain the gasp that involuntarily broke out of him.
It was even more gruesome in person than the vision Azrythar had conjured up for him.
The grey bodies had unseeing eyes gouging out of their skulls, matted hair tangled in clumps along their skull, and great gaping maws in the place of their mouths, chewing at the air whenever they broke through the surface.
He put a hand over his mouth to try and hold back the bile threatening to rise in his throat.
Without the cave entrance and ceiling opening, he imagined the stench might’ve been overwhelming.
He walked around the Lake because Azrythar hadn’t mentioned going towards the island for he was in pursuit of something ‘past the waters, past the dead.’ He didn’t dare stray too close to the uneven edge of the water lest one of them grab onto him like in the vision- he wasn’t sure he even had enough strength left to escape that if it did happen.
It wasn’t too far to the opposite side of the cave and when he arrived there, he almost wished it had taken longer so that he could delay this inevitable step into what could change the course of their lives.
He didn’t want to know what might happen if he failed here, today. At best, Regulus wouldn’t get his memories back and stay as he is now, at worst, he could fracture Regulus’ mind entirely, severing its connection to this place and in turn, reality itself.
He wiped the sweat off his hands onto his trousers, shifting his weight uneasily.
James felt a detached sense of reality to this entire situation now.
After facing a bloody dragon in Switzerland to being thrown to gods’ knows where in a cave full of Inferi, nothing felt intimidating anymore. He was sure he’d have nightmares about this entire thing but that’s if and only if he makes it out of here.
His mind was entirely quiet throughout this entire experience, his body doing the work for him and he was grateful for it.
He didn’t have to look for long to find the chamber the dragon spoke of.
Amidst the rough grey stone was an ornately carved and gilded door, reflective like a still pool of water but just beneath the surface, he could see movement, the way a potion glimmered when stirred. It was entrancing, streaks of purple and red, green and blue, dancing among each other within it.
The surface was ice-cold under his hand but when he pressed harder in, it gave way, opening enough for his body to slip through.
He stepped into the chamber, and the silence swallowed him whole.
It was unlike any silence he had ever known- deep, unnatural, and suffocating. No echo of his footsteps, not even a whisper of breath, as if the air itself refused to acknowledge his presence. The walls shimmered around him though, dark veins of magic pulsing just beneath the surface. Memories moved like shadows trapped beneath glass, flickering in and out of focus.
Then, the first whisper.
James flinched. It came from nowhere and everywhere, soft as a breath against his ear.
"James."
His head snapped up as the walls shifted.
Flickering across the surface, memories began to play but they were not his own.
James’s breath caught as he saw Regulus- young, maybe fifteen, seated at a desk with a book open before him, candlelight flickering in his sharp eyes. The scene twisted, blurred- Regulus older now, wand clenched in his hand, muttering something under his breath, dark magic curling at his fingertips. Another shift- Regulus at the edge of a vast black lake, hesitating, shoulders squared as if steeling himself before stepping forward.
James reached out.
The second his fingers grazed the wall the memories shattered and the chamber lurched, throwing him off balance.
Darkness spilled out, seeping from the walls and curling at his feet. A low, keening sound filled the air, like something old and hungry awakening.
And then a voice boomed around him, "You shouldn't be here."
James whirled around and the chamber warped, stretching, the opposite wall pulling away.
Regulus stood across the chamber, half-hidden in shadow. His eyes were unreadable, his posture eerily still.
No. Not Regulus.
James set his jaw. “You’re not real.”
The illusion tilted its head. "Aren’t I?"
The shadows moved. The walls pulsed, more memories flickering into life—but these weren’t Regulus’ anymore.
They were James’.
James and Regulus, years ago, a rare moment of peace, sitting together in the library, their knees nearly touching as Regulus spoke in that quiet, steady way of his.
The image twisted.
James alone, standing in the rain, clutching a letter with smudged ink.
Twisted again.
Sirius screaming at him right after The Prank, begging for James to listen to him while he turned his back on him.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Not real. Not real.
"You think you deserve to take this from me?"
James’ eyes snapped open.
The illusion had stepped closer. The shadows recoiled around its form, twisting like smoke, "You weren’t there when it mattered," it whispered.
James felt something ugly rise in his chest. Guilt. Regret. The knowledge that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not change the past.
But he could change this.
His hands clenched into fists. “I didn’t come here to argue with ghosts.”
The illusion smiled. Sharp. Knowing, "Then let’s see if you’re strong enough to take back what you came for."
The chamber roared to life and the shadows lunged for him with greedy hands.
James reacted on instinct, dodging left as the darkness lashed at the space where he had just stood. Another strike- he barely managed to deflect it, the force sending him skidding backward. The air was thick with magic, ancient and unrelenting.
The illusion watched.
James gritted his teeth, dodging another strike.
He turned sharply, eyes scanning the walls-the memories were still there. Regulus’ life, trapped within the stone, he just needed to focus.
And then he saw it.
A single, thin thread of silver, woven between the others. Small. Fragile. Real.
James dove-
A hand clamped onto his wrist.
Cold. Unyielding.
The illusion of Regulus was right there, inches from his face.
"Leave it." The words were soft now. Almost pleading. “I wanted to die. Leave it.”
James hesitated. Just for a second. And then, with all the force he had left, he tore the memory free.
The chamber screamed.
The walls cracked, the shadows shrieked, and James felt something heavy and electric and alive rush into him.
Memories.
Regulus’ memories.
They poured into his mind like rushing water, too fast, too much, but he held on until there was nothing left but the silence of the dead.
James staggered back. His chest heaved. His hands trembled.
And the illusion of Regulus was gone.
He felt alive with the weight of Regulus’ life in his body, pulsing in time with his blood like Regulus was inside of him . There wasn’t enough space within him to hold himself and Regulus and he needed to get out now because he felt like he was going to explode.
He leaped out of the chamber and paused for just long enough to see the doorway reset itself again before he was kicking up sand behind his feet, running with all of his might towards the entrance opposite him.
Flashes of Regulus’ life assaulted him- patches of green grass bleeding into white sand, Evan and Barty laughing, a fire burning in a hearth, blonde hair fanned over a purple pillow. He saw Sirius bent over a small corner in Grimmauld and Kreacher heating up a cup of tea.
The memories were hardly groundbreaking but it showed all of the quiet moments of Regulus’ life that he remembered and James wasn’t a part of.
He could feel phantom touches running over him- a brush against his brow, a caress of his elbow, he even felt something snake up the back of his leg and wondered for a brief moment if that was the memory of his own hand.
He tripped hard on a jutting piece of stone, his head thunking against the ground so hard that his teeth rattled and he supposed he should’ve expected that, running through here like a madman, but the pain was overshadowed by more pain.
A sting on his arm, a lash at his back, a scrape on his arm- pain begeted pain, real versus remembered, and he struggled to differentiate the two considering how many of his own injuries he had.
But the pain on his arm overshadowed all else- a bone-deep, searing, kind of pain that made you wonder whether you’ve ever actually felt pain before. He looked down at his arm, clearing the dirt from his eyes, and choked on his own breath before the hazy grey shape that had taken over his arm. He turned away, knowing and dreading it all the while.
He turned towards the centre of the island, the jutting marble podium, a clean spot of white amidst the grey and the locket came to the forefront of his mind and he focused on it- hard . Then suddenly he saw…he couldn’t make sense of it- a black leather bound notebook slamming hard against a table, a dark shack, and a golden chalice from which Bellatrix was sipping from- her cackle echoing in his ears.
It wasn’t what he thought he’d see so he shook his head and straightened.
He broke out of the entrance and stopped suddenly, his body swaying from the momentum he had so suddenly cut off and a wave broke against the shore, wetting his legs up to his knees and the ice-cold clarity of it helped wake him up from this dream that he had fallen into.
With shaking hands, he pulled his wand out and turned on his heel, hurtling like a meteor back home.
____________
James crash-landed at home, hitting the ground hard at the edge of the property, the breath knocked from his lungs as he sprawled in the garden dirt. For a long moment, he just lay there, dazed, his body screaming with exhaustion, the night air sharp against his burned skin.
“Kreacher,” he rasped.
The front door burst open. It was almost comical, how Kreacher insisted on using the door now when he could have just popped into existence beside him like he usually did. But then he saw the look on the elf’s face- his massive eyes glistening, his mouth trembling as it stretched into something James had never seen before. A smile.
“James!” Kreacher choked out, bolting down the steps. “James is being alive! The dragon is not being eating him!”
James let out a breathless, bitter chuckle. “No,” he murmured, his head dropping forward, too heavy to hold up anymore. “The dragon is not being eating me.”
Kreacher pressed a wrinkled hand to his shoulder, his grip unexpectedly firm. “I will be taking James to bed.”
James shook his head sluggishly, every movement an ache. “Take me to St. Mungo’s first.”
“But James is needing-.”
“I need,” James cut in, his voice raw, “to get Regulus out of me first.”
Kreacher flinched, his brow furrowing in bewilderment but he nodded, if only out of obedience, and the next thing he knew, the familiar pull of Apparition yanked him from the ground.
____________
The hospital was in chaos. The waiting room teemed with injured witches and wizards, some groaning, some shouting, and the lime-green robes of Healers flitted urgently between them, their hands slick with blood and potion. The noise, the movement, the sheer press of people made James’ head spin.
He was getting dizzy in the mess of it all but Kreacher’s grip on him was like iron, dragging him through the crowd.
They found Regulus in his usual bed, pale but stable, his chest rising and falling in steady breaths but his relief was cut through by the feeling of loss.
He didn’t actually know how to return Regulus' memories. He didn’t even know where to start.
He felt a cold wave of air rush over him quickly and realised Kreacher had cast a cleaning charm on him for all the dried up blood and dirt and he carefully mended the holes in his clothes as best he could but it was clear he'd need to see a doctor soon. “So what is James needing to be doing?” Kreacher carefully prompted and James, a desperate cry lodging itself in his throat, wanted to scream.
James swallowed hard. He should have asked Azrythar for more details. Should have researched, prepared—should have done something . But he hadn’t. And now he stood here, shaking, terrified that all of it had been for nothing.
His hands curled into fists. He reached out and grabbed Regulus' wrist squeezing hard enough to leave marks. Nothing. He tried again. Harder. As if sheer force could will the memories back into him. Still nothing. Panic clawed up his throat, and with it came the onslaught of foreign memories, not his own but his now, crashing through him like a tidal wave.
His hands flew to his head as if he could physically keep himself together. He must have looked half-mad- burned, bleeding, and concussed, now crumbling under the weight of something unseen. His knees buckled, and he hit the floor beside Regulus’ bed, his body wracked with trembling and anguish washed over him.
“Regulus,” he sniffled, “I did it. I destroyed the horcrux. You’re memories, I- I have them back if you want them but I don’t- I don’t know how to help you.” He brushed a hand across his cheek, hoping for some sort of reaction but he received none.
He turned helplessly to Kreacher. “Help me,” he whispered, broken.
The elf looked down at his hands, “Kreacher is not knowing how.”
James pressed his forehead against the mattress, his chest tight with agony. He had come so far, survived so much, but now- now he didn’t know if any of it would matter.
Regulus was always an enigma to him, even in the thick of their relationship, James still felt like he was learning more about him every single day so finding him without his memories didn’t deter him one bit. In fact, it felt cosmic that they would wind up in this city hundreds of miles away from where they started, because surely their souls couldn’t stay apart for long but James didn’t know what he’d do if Regulus simply didn’t wake up.
How long would James waste away at his bedside, waiting and hoping for him to wake up?
He slowly stood up and bent down to press a kiss to his lips and his entire world narrowed down to that single point of contact. Then he felt it-
A pulse.
A wrenching sensation, like something being torn from his very soul, started at his sternum and surged outward. A golden light flared, bursting from between them, blinding and warm. It wasn’t the searing, agonizing heat of Azrythar’s flame but something softer, something that wrapped around him, suffused him. He wanted to sink into it, stay in it forever.
His fingers found Regulus’ hand. And this time,
Regulus squeezed back.
James’ breath caught, and he forced his eyes open, blinking away the light until all he could see was silver—Regulus’ eyes, bright and clear, staring back at him.
“Regulus?” he breathed.
The world had fallen away, leaving only the two of them, locked in this fragile, endless moment.
Regulus’ lips curled into the smallest, softest smile. And when he spoke, he said James’ name like no time had passed at all.
“James.”
James choked on something between a laugh and a sob. He knew, with absolute certainty, that Regulus remembered. Maybe not everything. Maybe not clearly. But he knew. He understood. He was here .
James surged forward, wrapping him in a crushing embrace. Regulus clung to him just as fiercely, and James felt it down to his bones-
His Reg was back.