Timeless

James

It was loud voices, screaming and cursing, that woke me up. When had I fallen asleep? 

I lifted my head from the open book it had fallen onto, it was one on different kinds of vows, open on the chapter of the unbreakable kind. I'd read the whole chapter carefully at least a dozen times, word by word, and had not yet found a loophole. Yet. Surely there had to be one. I refocused my eyes on it.

The backdoor burst open then, and Alphard walked in alongside Pads and Moony. I jumped up because for him to show up here something had to be wrong, something had to be horribly wrong. 

And then he said the words that made my hopes shatter into pieces, my eyesight blur and my body shake.

“The wedding's been moved up. It's tomorrow,”

I thought we had a week to find the loophole. A week wasn't plenty but a week might have been enough. A day, however, maybe even less than, it wouldn't- there was no way we would find a way to break an unbreakable curse in less than a day.

It wasn't fair what was happening. It wasn't fair that he was going to die because he couldn't fulfil what he had no power over. He couldn't make Alphard marry him unless he used an imperius curse. Was that what his parents were trying to get him to do? Use dark magic? The unforgivebles? What kind of parent would do that?

We had to save him. We needed to get him out of there, postpone the wedding, let him be in my arms while we found the solution, the loophole. Something. Anything.

“James, you brotherfucker, you need to breathe,” Pads' hands were on my cheeks. I was hyperventilating, wasn't I? I took in a deep breath, letting it out in a shaking discontinuing manner. I was hugging my knees to my chest and rocking. I was on the floor? How'd I end up on the floor?

Didn't matter.

“Pads we need to get him out. We need to save him,”

“I know,” 

“He's my soulmate. I cannot. I cannot lose him. Please. I-” my voice broke and my face dropped to my lap. 

“Soulmate, huh?” Sirius was oddly calm, “I'm gonna kill you both if you survive you know,”

“Pads..” Moony's warning voice sounded from the background somewhere.

Sirius turned to his husband, “What? I was calm,”

“You threatened to kill them,”

“That was a promise, actually,” he stood and went to have an argument with his soulmate.

I wanted to go have one with mine, but I couldn't.

“It will be okay,” Alphard had sat on the ground next to me, “Sirius will come around. You and Regulus will both be okay. Happy. Together.”

“How?”

“I don't know yet. But I know you will. And I've taken divination so I know that stuff,”

“You failed divination. Twice.”

“Potato-potato.”

After the first shockwave calmed we got to work, plans of the black family homes were drawn, passageways and animals on them, alarm systems and house elves. After all, it was a kidnapping of the black family heir we had decided on. 

The second table read, reread, then re-reread, and read once more for good measure, every text we could find on unbreakable vows. Unfortunately, they seemed to indeed be what the name indicated - unbreakable. I hated it, but we'd find a loophole eventually, we had to.

We'd just have to steal Regulus for long enough to do that.

And once we did, then what? 

I didn't know and to be honest, right now I didn't care. I wanted him to be alive and happy, it was up to him where and how and when he'd accomplish that. If he did not want to be with me I would accept that, but I couldn't live in a world where he was not out there somewhere. I needed the knowledge that in some corner of the planet he was smiling and alive. If he wasn't…

We needed to get him out.

He may not himself realise it but he deserved the world and the very least we could do was get him out. After all, he'd been through, all he'd suffered, he needed to actually be given a chance at life and so this was our mission. My mission.