Voldemort was here. Why was Voldemort here? He wasn’t supposed to be able to find them. Peter was keeping the secret safe.
God, had Peter turned them in? Why would he do that? Had something gone wrong? Had he been tortured? Had he been killed?
These thoughts, plus millions more, chased each other through James’s head, before going silent. Voldemort was coming through the door. Harry was in the kitchen. James’s wand was in the living room. James knew which one he would be going to.
He shut the kitchen door and threw chairs against it. He pushed the table in front of it. He threw any and everything he could find on top of it. He could hear Voldemort laughing at his attempts to block him out, the sound insane and cruel. Harry looked up at him brightly from his high chair, having not a clue what was going on, playing in the applesauce he’d made a mess of.
James backed away from the door. He looked at Harry, who giggled, and put a hand on his arm, crouching in front of the chair so he was on eye level with him.
“I love you, Harry,” he whispered. “I love you so much. Daddy loves you, too. Be brave. It’ll be okay.”
Harry only giggled again.
The door smashed open, the table and chairs flying away from it. James whirled, flying back to his feet, and came face to face with Voldemort. James put his arms out, shielding Harry from view.
“Stand aside, boy,” Voldemort said, his voice high and cruel. “And your life may be spared.”
“Get away from my son,” James spat.
Voldemort raised his wand. “You have no defences. Stand aside or die.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Voldemort’s lips formed the curse. Green light flashed through the air. James’s last thought was an apology to Regulus, and that someone else would find him and Harry before Reg did.
-{}-{}-{}-
Regulus knew something was wrong the moment he apparated into Godric’s Hollow. He landed in his usual place, just outside the Fidelius Charm boundary, into a street that was normally deserted. Tonight, however, it was crawling with Muggles. And they were all looking right at the house.
That was wrong. Nobody should be able to see the house. Immediately, Regulus felt panic grip him. If Muggles could see the house, that meant wizards could see the house. If wizards could see the house, that meant Voldemort could see the house. If Voldemort could see the house, that meant the Fidelius Charm had broken, which meant that Peter had spilled the secret.
Nobody had even noticed him appear out of thin air, because they were all looking at the house. Something there was holding their attention. Which could mean absolutely nothing good.
Regulus shoved through the crowd, getting closer to the house, not caring who he forced out of the way. The house came into view. Regulus thought he might throw up.
The front windows that looked into the kitchen had been blown out. The walls were crumbling. It looked like the house might collapse. Regulus threw the garden gate open, and felt a hand grab his arm. A Muggle man was looking at him in concern.
“Don’t go in there,” he said. “It looks dreadfully unstable!”
Regulus ignored him, ripped his arm out of the man’s hand, and took off up the path.
“Please have gone out,” he muttered desperately. “Don’t be in there. Be somewhere else, anywhere else, be with Sirius, or Lily, or…”
The front door was blasted apart, the wreckage of it littering the front hallway. Regulus slowed here. The magic was concentrated in the kitchen. If he was going to find something, it would be in the kitchen.
“Don’t be here,” he whispered, his panic growing as he moved towards the kitchen door. “Don’t be in there, don’t be in there…”
The kitchen door was blasted apart, too. The kitchen table and chairs were laying scattered about the room, in various stages of falling apart. James was laying on the floor in front of Harry’s high chair. Regulus couldn’t see his face. Harry was sitting in his chair, blood dripping down his forehead, crying hysterically.
Regulus kept his eyes on Harry. He couldn’t look at James. He might die if he looked at James, if he checked, if James was-
Harry reached his arms up to Regulus, making a grabbing motion. Regulus lifted him out of the chair, using his sleeve to wipe blood away from Harry’s eyes, feeling tears sting his own.
“Oh, what happened, Harry,” he whispered, clutching his son to his chest. “What happened?”
He stood there for a moment, cradling Harry, trying to soothe his tears and prevent his own. He couldn’t put it off. What if James was just unconscious, or injured, and needed help?
He lowered himself to the ground, holding Harry steady in his lap with one hand. Once they’d settled, he let Harry go, letting him sit in his lap, and reached towards James.
He was facing away from them. Regulus still couldn’t see his face. He gently touched James’s neck. He wasn’t cold. Regulus searched for a pulse, but could find nothing. He felt the tears on his face now, there was no stopping them. They were coming hot and fast as it reached him that there was no way Voldemort would have left James alive. He reached out with his other hand, gently lifting James by the shoulders and pulling him towards him.
Regulus could see his face now. His eyes were open and blank, staring without seeing. No spark of mischief, of happiness, of life was in them. Regulus hunched forward, gasping, as he sobbed. He held Harry tightly with one hand, and James with the other, and cried as he had never cried before.
-{}-{}-{}-
The moment Sirius arrived at Peter’s house, he knew something was terribly wrong. No lights were on. No movement from inside. No sign of a struggle. He forced his way inside and went through every room, calling Peter’s name, searching for any sign of the man or rat, but found nothing.
He could be out running errands. He could be meeting with Dumbledore. He could have gone to visit Lily and Pandora, or Dorcas and Marlene, or Evan and Barty. He could have gone to see Mary.
But Sirius’s gut feeling told him otherwise. It told him something was very, very wrong. If only Godric’s Hollow wasn’t under Fidelius, and he could remember where James, Regulus and Harry were to go check on them-
Godric’s Hollow.
Godric’s Hollow .
He could remember where they were. He knew where they were. If he knew where they were, it meant the spell had broken, which meant that… the spell only broke if one or more of the people protected by it had…
He ran from the house, leaped on his motorbike, and took off.
He knew something was wrong the moment the bike landed. He didn’t even wait for it to stop - he leapt off the moment it was close enough to the ground. It made a terrible screeching sound as it crashed into and slid across the pavement, but he was already forcing his way through the crowd to the house, which looked on the verge of collapse.
As he ran up the path, he could hear someone inside making terrible, choked sobbing sounds, the noises one only makes when in deep, unbearable pain. He crashed into the hallway. It was coming from the kitchen. He stumbled into the doorway, barely registering the splintered door frame and shattered furniture. He came to a stumbling halt as the scene inside registered.
Regulus was the one making the sounds. Harry was crying, too, in his lap. James was unmoving, unblinking, un breathing , as Regulus clutched him and sobbed.
Sirius couldn’t breathe. He made a strangled sort of choking sound as he tried to force air into his lungs. Regulus looked up at the sound, his face twisted with terrible grief as he met eyes with his brother. They both just stared at each other, the horrible reality of James’s lifelessness sinking into both of them, along with the miracle of Harry’s somehow continued life.
-{}-{}-{}-
“It’s my fault,” Regulus said dully, a few hours later.
They had left the house when the roof started caving in. they’d been unwilling to leave James’s body behind, so it was in Sirius’s room, on the bed, covered in a blanket. Sirius and Regulus were sitting on the couch, Harry still held tightly in Regulus’s arms.
“It’s not your fault,” Sirius objected at once, his voice just as dull.
“It is,” Regulus insisted. “I wasn’t there. I could’ve…”
“Could’ve what?” Sirius asked. “Against Voldemort? Could’ve nothing. That was the whole point of the spell. It was the only thing that could have kept Voldemort out, and once Peter decided to tell…”
His voice was choked by the rage that filled him at the thought of Peter. He would die, of course. Sirius was going to kill him. But right now he had to make sure that Regulus didn’t die himself. Peter could wait.
“It’s my fault,” Sirius continued, once he got his voice back.
“How the fuck is it your fault?” Regulus demanded.
“I suggested we switch to Peter,” Sirius said. “I said I was too obvious, no one would suspect Peter. I was James’s best friend, your brother, they’d all come after me. I handed the job to Peter. And he told Voldemort.”
They were both silent for a moment.
“No, you know what?” Regulus said abruptly. His voice had the most emotion in it that it had had all night, but the only emotion there was fury. “It’s not my fault. It’s not your fault either. It’s Peter’s fucking fault. Peter fucking Pettigrew. We should’ve known the second his animagus was a rat, the sneaky, backstabbing bastard .”
“I’m gonna kill him,” Sirius said, his voice perfectly steady. “I’m gonna hunt him down and I’m gonna rip him apart.”
“Obviously,” Regulus said. “And I’m going to help you.”
They were silent again.
“The Order will know by now,” Regulus said softly. “Dumbledore or someone will be at the house.”
“Oh god,” Sirius groaned, covering his face with his hands. “Someone is going to have to tell everyone else. Everyone else still has to find out. And - fuck - Remus is still on a mission, there’s no way to tell him, no way to tell him what happened. And I thought it was fucking him. I thought he was the spy. How could I think it was him? I’ve been with the man for how many years, and I thought he would just turn on all of us and give information to the Death Eaters?”
“War fucks with your mind,” Regulus said. “The fear, the paranoia, the danger. It fucks with you, makes you think and do crazy things.”
“I’m pretty sure Remus thought it was me. Oh, fuck ,” Sirius abruptly sat bolt upright, startling Regulus and Harry, who both looked at him in confusion. “The whole point - everyone else thinks it was me! Lily, Mary, Marlene, Barty, Evan, Dorcas, Pandora - they all think I was the Secret Keeper, that was the whole fucking point!”
“Yeah, well that didn’t work,” regulus said, his voice dull again.
“No, Reg,” Sirius said, running a hand down his face. “The Order has probably heard about this by now. They know . They know that the Secret Keeper handed you guys to Voldemort. And they all think the Secret Keeper is me .”
Regulus stared at him for a moment.
“Oh, fuck,” he said. “But… but I’m here with you. I’m not - I’m not dead. So I can tell them that it wasn’t you. And if they show up here and try to cart you off or attack you or anything, then they’ll have to kill me to fucking do it.”
Sirius looked at him. And began to laugh. It was insane, exhausted, grief-stricken and traumatised laughter, but he couldn’t stop it from escaping him. Regulus looked at him like he was insane, but the expression quickly fell from his face as equally insane, exhausted, grief-stricken and traumatised laughter escaped from him, as well. They had no more tears to cry that night, so instead, the brothers put their arms around each other, held Harry close, and set their madness free as laughter.