Chapter 1
JAMES POV
James Potter has been with Lily Evans since he was 18. He fell in love with her when he was 13. They got a two bedroom flat together when he was 21. And he fell out of love somewhere in between.
He does love her. Of course he does. How could anyone not love lily Evans. But when he looks for the romantic attraction he once held for her,he finds that it has disappeared.
He cant tell her. He cant hurt her. It would kill him to break her heart. He cant let people down.
So he will pretend. He will be the best boyfriend that lily could ever want. And that's what he has been doing.
He doesn't mind. It makes him happy to make her happy.
So if he rolls away from her in bed when shes fallen asleep,if his smile sometimes falls when she turns around, if he accidentally started spending more and more time with Sirius than her; he could survive.
But he was so tired.
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James sighed as he let himself into Remus and Sirius' flat. He was worried that lily was starting to realize that he didn't have feelings for her. She had hardly looked at him all day,hardly talked to him all week. And now he was here. Because he wasn't strong enough to do anything about it. He was running away.
"Pads?" he called."Moony?"
They weren't in the living room. He wondered if they were in the bedroom... did he really want to go in there? He's walked in on them way too many times. He cringed and started walking towards the room.
"They're out."
The sudden voice came from behind him in the silent flat. He was so startled, he let out an embarrassingly loud scream. Turning around he saw a man dressed in black pajama trousers and a dark grey knitted jumper,feet in pink socks with flowers on. In his hands was a steaming cup of tea,and on his face was an amused smirk.
James gripped his chest,breathing heavily. "Regulus! Give a man a warning!" After his breathing had calmed down, he asked "Out where?"
Regulus walked past him to the door to his bedroom,the one that doesn't exist on the outside of the building. "I don't know. they were gone when i woke up."
The room he was walking into had been spelled into existence after Regulus had turned up on their doorstep 3 months ago,bleeding and soaking wet. It had not been raining. As soon as the door opened he had collapsed on the floor. There had been a party inside,and Sirius,who had opened the door expecting the pizza they had ordered over the phone,screamed. Everyone except for James and Lily had been shoved out of the door by Remus,and Sirius carried his baby brother to the sofa.
The brothers hadn't talked to each other in years,longer than Sirius had been out of Hogwarts,and everyone,including them themselves, would have said that they hated each other. But Sirius helped Regulus without hesitation. He kneeled beside him and held his had while Remus and lily,who had the most healing experience,worked their magic on him.
They found out that he had ingested some kind of poison,not strong enough to kill on its own,but strong enough to make someone weak and drunk-like,and when they unbuttoned his shirt to find the bleeding,they found hundreds of cuts of different depths and widths. Remus healed them quickly,having years of experience of healing his own cuts and slashes,until only a couple dozen scars still marred the skin.
They hardly spoke a word until they was not much they could do for him physically. It was James who broke the silence.
"What the fuck did this to him?"
When Sirius turned to him,his face was mostly blank,apart from a quiet, seething rage, which he couldn't quite understand why it was on his best friends face. Sirius wasn't able to answer,he was afraid that if he spoke,he would cry,and he promised a year ago that he would never cry over his brother again.
He turned back to him. He was looking over his unconscious body when his gaze caught on the hand he wasn't holding,and the silver chain clenched in his grasp that caught the light. As he moved to grab it,Regulus awoke and jolted so violently away from Sirius that he was thrown back and fell on his ass.
Regulus had looked around the room in fear,sitting up on the sofa. Sirius picked himself back up and to his side. Regulus couldn't breath. He was gasping for air while Sirius held his face in his hands trying to calm him. No soothing words were working. James, Lily and Remus were just standing uselessly to the side.
Then an idea had come to Sirius. He gently dragged Regulus over to the window and opened the curtain. Suddenly Regulus was 8 and had just gotten in trouble with his parents,and his brother,his hero and his favorite person,was showing him the stars to remind him that things were okay somewhere.
Regulus only told Sirius what had happened. The rest of them had only been told that Regulus was on their side now,and that he had retrieved something for them that they didn't even know was a threat.
A horcrux.
Now, James was the one watching the stars as he followed Regulus into his room.
"Uuh... how are you?" Regulus sat down at a desk in the small room and moved some things around. James could have sworn it looked like he was covering some things up that he didn't want James to see.
"I'm fine potter. You're here everyday. You don't need to ask me everyday."
Regulus's stern tone was let down by the slight quirk to his mouth.
"Well" James adopted a mock offended voice "it never hurts to check!"
His heart lifted at the sound of Regulus's chuckle. He so rarely laughed when James saw him.
They then heard the sound of a bang on a window. Since Regulus's room didn't exist on the outside,a window could not exist. The sound had come from the living room window. James glanced at Regulus and then rushed to the window,just to get there before he could. He had opened the window and taken the letter from the owl before Regulus slowly walked into the room
"It actually is for me so take that. You walked all the way in here for nothing." He stuck out his tongue.
"OK" is all Regulus said.
The letter was from lily,and it was more of a note than a letter. All it said was 'can you come home? Its important.'
Important. Oh no. Important couldn't be good. She must have not been feeling loved enough. His guts were twisting.
"Are you okay?"
Regulus was looking at him strangely concerned. He must have been silent for too long. He plastered a smile on his face.
"Of course. I've got to go home though. Could you tell Sirius and Remus I was here when they come back?"
Regulus just nodded. His brows were still brought together,so James reassuringly patted his shoulder on his way to the door. He only just heard a whispered goodbye from him when he opened the door,but his back was still turned,so he left the flat.
He tried to bury the feeling of internal dread, and he apparated home.