James knew
Looking back
Maybe Regulus’s fate had been decided
From the very day
The sorting hat crowned his black hair
His curly black hair
And shrieked
As a dying bird calls out
‘SLYTHERIN’
As that’s what it was
A dying choice
The death of hope
Slytherin
Three syllables and a snake
Akin to the mark that would slither down his arm
Soon
Very soon
Rotting his forearm
Poisoning his blood
Down the very depths of the porcelain bone
Maybe the destiny of reptiles
Had been cemented
From the very day the 11 year old with big dreams
Was born again
Into very the animal
He could not escape.
RE-GU-LUS
Not the brightest
Never a Sirius
James found it
Unfair?
No
It was right
It was right until it was not
Until
Until the non-sirius
Shrivelled
A star reaching the end of its life
Leaving with a whimper
Not a bang
The whimper of a boy
Trapped in time
Trapped in himself
Inside the moudly palace
James had wondered
Still wondered
What happened inside
Of the locked tomb
Of his mind
The quirks of his mouth
Gleam of his eyes
The blood in his cheeks
Faded
Blurry like a worn memory
They never noticed
Not at the time
Not until t-shirts turned to long armed robes
Eyes turned blacker and blacker
The noble house of black
The prodigy
Second son
James always thought he was more
More colourful than a black
A lighter grey instead
He supposes.
He remembers the first time
The time he saw Regulus
Really saw him
If almost (he wishes) for the first time
Before the world faded
Before the whispered secrets
Before the sides were chosen
Simpler times
Of cold autumn breeze
Charms homework
And the cold cold eyes of Regulus Black
James had felt sick
Sick with longing
Sick with guilt
Sick with… frenzy
A bacchic ritual
Reggie was in front
Out of touch
Maenadic madness
And now James
Would always follow
His star
His god
His destiny
As inevitable as it may be
For a 15 year old boy
In love with his best friend’s brother
James remembered
Always remembering
The taste of those lips
Cherry
Late Spring again
Buried secrets
The weight of spoken words
Among silk bedsheets
Heavy with the unspoken ones
Maybe if they had
Talked
Simply talked more about what mattered
They could have fought destiny
Reached clarity
Stopped the inevitable events
That were set to happen from the moment
The very second
‘SLYTHERIN’
The snake and the lion
Well
James always thought of cats
Rather than snakes for reg
His little cat
The astronomy tower
Under the depths of invisibility
With hidden promises
On bruised lips
James stared, he knew he did
Remus knew he did too
His glare forced into James
Truths he could never want to accept
He caught James staring
More times than he cared to admit
Fidding with his tie
Pressing down on the bites beneath his shirt
Jolting with the pain coursing in his veins
He relished in it
Staring
Regulus caught his eye sometimes
Narrow and sharp
James was on top of the world
Blinded and sickened by adoration
But he would never
Have it any other way
James had heard it
The phrase
‘History moves in circles’
Round and round
History will continue to move
The cat and the lion
The Slytherin and the Gryffindor
The death eater
The dead
History was never meant to be them
They had decided
From the very day they found each other
They were the odds defeated
They were a future
Owed a future
But history did not move in just circles
It rang great bloody rings around them
James often thought of war
The sides in war
As the splitting of an apple
Black and white
Good and bad
The grey in the middle
Was always distinguished
Regulus was bad
James knew that
He was the bad side, the forbidden fruit
He wanted to be bad
But secretly
James knew
Like a secret pressing against his ribs
Overwhelming him
Regulus was good too
Good of mind
Lion of heart
But the screech of a snake
Overrules the mewl of a kitten
And
That is that
Maybe it was set to happen before
Before the screech of the hat
From the day of birth
In the end
A Potter and a Black
Never could make another colour
He was a star
But the stars laughed cruelly down
At the two lovers.
Regulus left
One summer
Dark mark and all
James never told him
He had never told him
The mark
It was repulsive magic
James wanted to bite it
Drag his tongue across it
Maybe he was sick the head as well
Regulus,
Lover,
Come home to me
As when the dawn meets the horizon
The black brothers
Were always too alike
It seemed like they both would break
In the end
Sirius bloomed
Regulus starved
James still adored them both
For how different and the same they were
Sirius would never know
The weight of sacrifice
For a name
A name scorned
James would never mention it
He would never know
Sirius or Regulus?
James still saw him sometimes
Out
In missions
In the flash of a green spell
They were cloaked
Masked
Blackened, hidden and deadened
But Regulus had always had a limp
His back as straight as a ruler
James would know him anywhere
‘Familial duty’
James tried to remember those words
That had come from his lips
In a time so long ago
Their importance
His chest was so empty now
Heartbreak felt like drowning
A star fully extinguished
James wondered now
If he had been wrong
Sirius should have known
His baby brother
But he thinks Sirius always knew
Somehow
In the side glances
About the moments in shadowed corners
The whispered promises
He has his moony
James has Reggie
Had Reggie
James gorged on memories
A man stuck in time
Stuck in his own head
Regulus, Regulus, Regulus
He was mentioned
Sometimes
In the order meetings
But
James only came back to life
For those moments
His heart thudding in its empty place
The signing of a death warrant
James came back to life
Only to hear his lover was still alive
And in a twist
A possibly cruel twist of fate
He always was
But then again, so was James
Two shattered hearts
Beating in motion
He was dying
James knew it
The final hurdle
And he had failed to leap
Blood oozed
Sluggishly
The cacophony of madness
Still echoed around around him
Eaters of his death and his side
James would die
In the corner of a blackened room
Bled out
Maybe
It wouldn’t be that bad
But
Hands over shoulders,
Voice in his ear,
Cloak wrapped anew,
‘Jamie!’
James whimpered
And passed out
Sirius’s eyes
Greeted him when he awoke
Bleeding less externally
Broken more internally
Reggie had saved him
Dumped on Sirius’s doorstep
Always James, never himself
Always his Jamie
Never his reggie
James passed out again
The frantic cries of Sirius
Mixing with Regulus’s voice
The moment that broke him
Came too soon
As inevitable as it was
From the start
James hoped
Deep down somewhere
That he wasn’t dead
He was too smart
Too cunning
Too dead
James didn’t feel pain anymore
His heart had cracked
Shattered
Confetti in the wind
On the exact moment, second, minute, breath
He knew
Regulus was dead
Years shrivelled up in the wind
Memories blackened
So yes
His heart was shattered
It was confetti leading to Him
He retched
A bacchic ritual
Love infused with madness
James knew it
Knew he would never feel this again
Never be more grief-heavy
For a love that spun him on his heels
Regulus
Come home
Even if home is the depths of hell
Come sing from the mountains
Whisper into my ear again
Grin
Dance
Sing
Worship
What is a worshipper?
What is a bacchant?
Without his god, the worshipped
James never stopped feeling sick
With loss
And love
They realised
All of them
‘The right side’ of the war
If there even were sides
Colours
They all knew loss
But not to the extremes
They realised who Reggie was
But never how much he had meant
To the boy with glasses
And faded eyes
Regulus had taken James’s life with him
From the moment he died.
Lily
The secondary light
As bright as her namesake
It was an easy love
An easy home
In a difficult war
James started to change
Bring himself back together
But never fully
The memories of Regulus ached
He told her about him
Nights wrapped with tangled legs
The life they were to lead
The future they were owed
So badly
She stayed quiet
Hand running over the bend
Of James’s arm
Her love wasn’t madness
Wasn’t all consuming
Wasn’t enough to break him apart
And that was
Just Fine
And if she ever awoke
To a whispered name that was not hers
She just tugged James closer
Protecting a baby bird
She never mentioned it in the morning
And if he ever awoke
To a strangled gasp of the name
That was not his
Mary
He never mentioned it in the morning
They were both mourning
For the lives they could have led
The houses they could have had
The fate they could have changed
That now only existed in dreams
And in the confines of each other
He knew
From the instant the tiny fingers
Reached up to touch his own
Nothing living could be more
More important than this moment
His child
Harry
A birth amongst all the death
Lily smiled at him
Exhausted but haunted
He knew he was the same
And
He resented it
That deep down he still wished
It was all so so different
He hated himself for that
Only slightly
James snapped back
Back from his memories
The flashes of the past
On the dawn of death
He was going to meet Reg
Once more
His dying breath
It didn’t rattle
Not to James
But fluttered in the confines of his chest
Fluttered with promise
No one could come back from this
From the green light
He wondered if this is what Reg had felt
All those eternities ago
Two shattered hearts
Now dying together once again
Lily’s screams broke through the fog
Upstairs
His child
His wife
But all emotions faded
Past the flash of the green light
Padfoot
Moony
Wormtail
Secret keeper Wormtail
The betrayal of a rat
It all faded to a dull throb
James remembered his wand
Lying uselessly in the kitchen
Duller and duller
Reg was waiting
Beyond the border
If he had the strength to reach out
Maybe he could find it
The life they were meant to have
A small apartment
Muggle books on the shelves
Kisses and laughter
A brighter sun
A small cat
Hope
And of course
Regulus
Sprawled over their sofa
In the their kitchen
Coming back home in the evenings
If only he could reach out
For his lover
James died
On the eve of halloween
On their annual pranking night
He always thought younger Sirius would have found that date absolutely hilarious.