we can be pirates
‘And I've been meaning to tell you
I think your house is haunted
Your dad is always mad and that must be why
And I think you should come live with
Me and we can be pirates
Then you won't have to cry
Or hide in the closet
And just like a folk song
Our love will be passed on’
It was just another Tuesday for James Potter when he woke up to a big problem.
The incessant banging on his door was not the problem. The 3am on his clock was.
“Sirius?”
There’s a silence before he hears a slight whimper coming from outside his bedroom.
“Fucking hell,” James sighs, reaching for the closest sweater and tossing it over his singlet before walking towards the door.
It creaks when it opens, revealing a worried Sirius Black pacing up and down the hallway. His hair was ruffled and messier than ever, his eyes tired and red, indicating that he had been crying and not at all asleep. James could see his friend’s hands trembling and picking on his lips that appear to be bleeding from his own teeth.
“Sirius?”
The black-haired boy whips around to face him and it is immediately evident that something is horribly wrong.
“We need to go to Grimmauld Place now.”
“What?” James says in shock, thinking he misheard.
“NOW, JAMES, NOW!”
Sirius tosses his hands in the air, immediately coming back down to push his hair back up and fidget with it like he does when he’s nervous. James doesn’t flinch at the sudden outburst, knowing it all too well. He’d been best friends with Sirius Black for 6 years now and he knew quite intimately how anxious he can get or how riled up a simple comment can make him. A product of years and years of abuse no doubt. But still, this is new.
Never, in the years that James had known him, had Sirius Black wanted to go back to Grimmauld Place.
He stalks over and takes the trembling hands of his friend, stopping him from picking at the pimples on his face. He holds the hands between them and stares at the eyes he knows so well.
“Pads, look at me.”
Sirius looks up at him and a sob wrecks through him but no tears escape his eyes. His lips are downturned and his eyes look like they’ve squeezed out every last drop they can muster and still it wasn’t enough. When he speaks again, his voice is rough and painstakingly desperate.
“Please, James.”
“I swore to you that I wouldn’t let you go back to that god damn place again. It’s hell and you know it. So, either you tell me what the fuck has brought this weird mood upon us or calm down at let me make you a cup of tea because you going back there is not a fucking optio-”
“It’s Reg.”
“What?”
“Reg. I can feel it. Something’s wrong, please.”
“I don’t-”
“You don’t have to understand, James. He’s my brother and if something’s wrong I’m going to go. Are you coming or not?”
“Of- of course but how do you- how can you be so sure?”
“I’ll explain later we just have to go, now, please.”
“Yeah okay, of course Pads.”
James rushes down to the kitchen and jots a simple message to his parents saying that Sirius and him had to go for a walk, not mentioning Grimmauld Place at all, knowing his mother would sooner stampede the world to the ground than let either of her sons near a mile radius of the godforsaken hellhole.
Sirius appears, eyes urgent and flustered holding traces of floo powder in his hand. James’ eyebrow cocks in questioning at the sight.
“It leads to Reg’s bedroom, I took it the night I left just- just in case, you know.”
He nods.
James always knew that although he was like a brother to Sirius, Regulus came first in every manner. It was not something that James opposed or even ever concerned himself with. He understood why it was so. They may not be on the best terms but Sirius and Regulus had a bond that only brothers could have, a bond that ran so deep that if it were ever permanently broken, both parties would be irrevocably destroyed as well.
It wasn’t a family thing; James knew that too. Family was the last thing on Sirius’ mind. It was something else no one could quite describe.
It was special in a fucked-up way.
The best kind of special, James thinks.
So, two 16-year-old boys shuffle towards a fireplace and travel to Tartarus.
It was just another Tuesday for James Potter and his life changed irreparably.
----------------
Floo Powder always made James a little nauseous though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was a sensitive prick who couldn’t stomach the very common mode of transportation but quite nearly every time he travelled this way, he could feel his tummy turn and threaten to spill out through his throat. It was disgusting.
The spinning was a major contribution and whilst he doesn’t always throw up, it does take a minute for him to adjust to what he’s seeing most of the time. The black dots that very often accompany his sight come back into frame, blinding him for a moment before he begins to make out shadows and figures. He can hear Sirius rushing towards something, voice high pitched yet soft.
James isn’t sure what’s happening, reaching out to grab for his friend in an attempt to make sense of what he’s seeing.
It’s a few moments before the world stops spinning madly and the blindness that prevents him from moving without falling over or throwing up leaves him. Finally, he can see clearly. And,
oh.
“Fuck,” James breathes out, joining Sirius.
In front of them, lying on the cold stone floor, is a dying Regulus Black.
His chest is gnashed open, cut up so horribly that James can’t even tell what kind of creature caused it. His face was covered in a plethora of scratches, ranging from paper cuts to deep wounds that will likely need stitches. Blood seeps through the white collared shirt that he has on, staining the green tie that had loosened around his neck. His sleeves are frayed and torn in multiple areas; pants similarly fashioned, each hole accompanied by a cut. He lay lifeless, eyes squeezed shut as if trying to rid the pain by just ignoring it. The only sign of life that he showed was his fingers twitching on the ground, which is when James realises they look distorted and bent in ways they should not be.
He reaches the young boy before Sirius, who is standing shocked and terrified behind him, does.
James reaches for the twitching finger, holding it in a sign for him to stop moving. He doesn’t want Regulus to waste any energy he doesn’t have to. Skilfully, James tears off a piece of his own shirt under his hoodie, pressing onto the worst wound on his chest. Regulus grunts in pain.
“I’m sorry,” James flinches in guilt. “I need to apply pressure on it.”
Regulus nods in understanding, still not saying a word.
“Don’t move, you’ll make it worse.”
He doesn’t nod this time but James knows he understands.
James feels a squeezing pain deep within his ribs every time he looks at the young boy, wanting desperately to remove any source of pain that torments Regulus and absorb it for himself.
“Okay, I’m going to need to open your eyes so that you don’t fall asleep on us, can you do that for me?”
There’s a moment of silence where James’ heart drops so far into his stomach at the thought that he might be holding a corpse before Regulus’ eyes flicker open. James takes a moment to peer into them curiously and finds that it is filled with unbelievable pain. But there’s something else there, something that he doesn’t quite recognise coming from the foreign boy.
A glint of- of- relief?
“Reg,” Sirius breathes from behind them and James is reminded of his friend’s presence. The boy rushes to his brother’s side, tears brimming his eyes. “Oh my god, Reg, I’m so sorry, oh my god, I’m going to fucking kill them.”
“Don’t be hasty, Black. They’re still family, no?” Regulus responds.
Sirius shakes his head firmly, threading his hand carefully through Regulus’ curls, worry evident in his face.
“No. Family doesn’t do this. They are strangers, Reg. We,” Sirius motions between him and Regulus in urgency, eyes wide as if trying to emphasise a point. “We are family.”
The young boy doesn’t respond but James swears he sees a slight flicker at the corner of his mouth that turns upwards.
James is confused by the conversation that unfolds before him, unsure what the two are referring to. He ponders over it as he cleans up whatever blood he can using scraps from his own shirt beneath his hoodie. He takes the bigger pieces and ties them tightly over the deep scratches on Regulus’ arms, instructing Sirius to continue holding pressure on the first one he had tended to on his chest.
James works swiftly and methodically, remembering what his mother told him. James does this nursing thing well, having done it for Remus millions of times, and even for Sirius during his earlier years at Hogwarts when he would return from Christmas breaks busted and bruised. Over the years, the process had become habitual and James does it almost mindlessly, only stopping to think of the prioritisation of wounds to go through to ensure the least blood loss.
His mum is a highly trained healer and had passed down basic knowledge to James during the summer of his first year when he had asked her. James was a fast learner and picked it all up quickly, listening to everything his mother said carefully and performing each step meticulously and with care. It was actually Remus who prompted this sudden pique of curiosity in him, always showing up to classes littered with thousands of scars, some still open and bleeding, with no explanation as to why.
Of course, back then, Remus hadn’t told them yet of his… wolfy habit.
So, if James couldn’t stop the reason it was happening, he’d have to stop the consequence. And he did.
Instead of showing up with blood spilling onto his robes, Remus began appearing covered in bandages and plasters which in James’ books, is a lot better.
The skill ended up becoming extremely useful when James began playing quidditch, quickly being appointed the unofficial healer for the Gryffindor Team, or any team really, he wouldn’t leave even a bleeding Slytherin on the field.
And weirdly enough, this penchant for healing and ability to help others in a way that not many others seem to be well versed in became not only second-nature to James, but something he was proud of, despite it being completely normal to have a basic understanding of first aid.
But James liked to heal, to be looked for when someone needed a bandage. To be needed.
Needless to say, him and Ms Pomfrey became an odd pair of friends.
He can hear Sirius chattering to Regulus beside him, having a one-sided conversation to keep them all awake. But James isn’t listening, instead wondering what happened to Regulus and what kind of creature could have done such a thing.
Which is when his breath is punched out by a realisation, hands that held a half-tied knot over the last wound frozen in shock, mind racing a mile per minute.
It wasn’t a creature who did this. It was a fucking monster.
“James?”
He hears Sirius’ voice call out to him, pulling him out of his epiphany trance. James smiles at him, finishing up the last knot.
“That’s all I can do now, we need to bring him back home, my mum has all the things we need for stitches.”
Sirius nods, looking uncertain. He turns to face Regulus who, despite the circumstance, looks exceedingly calm.
“I’ll come,” Regulus says, as if James would have given him a choice at all. But he can play along.
“Pads, go back and tell my mum to get us, she’ll apparate us out of here.”
Sirius looks nervously between James and his brother and the fireplace, obviously not wanting to leave Regulus in this hell-hole ever again.
“As flattered as I am that you want to stay brother dearest, James would get into much less trouble if he were found than if you were which would consequently mean that I would get into less trouble, so please do go.”
Sirius laughs and nods, moving towards the fireplace and taking one last look at his brother before vanishing into a smoke.
Regulus rests his head back onto the floor. Admittedly, James did not think about Walburga or Orion walking in, he just didn’t want to take the floo back.
And somewhere deep in his selfish ugly soul, James Potter did not want to leave Regulus’ side.
But that’s just because of his odd compulsion to help people of course.
“Potter,” Regulus says, his voice different from the calm state before. “Someone’s coming.”
James’ heart speeds up. Come on, Sirius, hurry up.
“I can’t move, if I do the blood will gush out.”
The panic in Regulus’ eyes are evident, and it’s not something that James had seen before, usually knowing him as calm, cool, and calculated.
The door creaks open to reveal a big man, likely double James’ size, towering over the two of them.
Orion Black.
His face is stern and has traces of evil that cover his cheeks. Grey eyes look guarded and as if they were plotting something that would result in millions of deaths. His hands are covered in scars, most likely inflicted by people who are now 6 feet in the ground.
James gulps.
They’re fucked.
“Regulus,” he says, voice coming out cold and emotionless.
“Father.”
Regulus sounds identical to his dad, and if James wasn’t holding onto his bleeding chest, he would be doubting if he was in any pain at all.
Silence passes between them, neither acknowledging the black sheep – James – at all.
After a few moments, James begins to feel less scared and more awkward than anything, still not daring to say a word anyways.
“I’m okay,” Regulus says after a while, presumably answering an unsaid question that lingered between their gazes.
His father nods silently, the tense look dissipating from his face and he looks almost, normal.
They hear loud clomps of feet coming toward his room and both Blacks cower in fear once again, James realising now that the real monster was approaching.
“Go,” Orion says, and James almost thinks he misheard if it weren’t for the breath of relief that comes from the boy beside him.
“Father, I-,” Regulus begins before the door slams.
Just then, a crack sounds from behind them and James’ mum appears. Thank god.
“Hold him carefully under his knees and neck, there you go just like that,” Effie instructs.
James looks at Regulus, asking for permission silently. He nods in approval and James picks him up slowly, marvelling at how exceptionally light he appears to be.
“What do you mean he’s gone?” screeches Walburga from the other side of the door.
James feels his mum’s hand on his shoulder, hearing the familiar crack as they apparate far away from Grimmauld Place, the last thing they hear being Walburga and Orion Black shouting in exasperation that their last son has finally left them.