Chapter 1
The day after James Potter died Regulus was prepared to follow him.
He was standing in front of the mirror, staring at a person he didn’t know, a shell of what he used be. He found no comfort in his appearance, no comfort in the condolences, not even in the arms of his weeping brother.
The only thing he felt comfort in right now were the small pile pills that built a castle in his palm.
Regulus didn’t quite believe in God, after being stuck so long in his own personal house of horrors he decided if God really did exist, he was an arsehole for not helping him out of his parents grasps and whatever man lived up in the clouds didn’t deserve a second of his time. But something had taken James away from him and Regulus wanted to down on his knees and pray it had taken him instead.
In what fucked up world did James Potter die? James was the only person Regulus knew that actually read the terms and conditions, not because he particularly cared, but because someone had put the effort into writing them and he would damned to skip over the hard work. James, spent more money on charities than he did on groceries. His lovely James, who patted every dog he saw and knocked on wood every single time someone mentioned how good Manchester’s chances of winning the league that year were.
James was on his own world entirely and he had grabbed Regulus’ hands and forced him to see life for all its beauty.
Now that he was gone, Regulus realised it was all lie. The world had never been a beautiful thing, it was James all along.
A strangled noise from down the hall forced Regulus to rip his eyes away from his own pitiful reflection.
He felt his heart break again when he realised for the first time since leaving the hospital, that James didn’t just leave behind a husband, he left behind a child as well. Regulus forced his feet to move, each step weighing deeply on his chest. When finally, he made it to Harry’s room, it took everything in him not to run back into the bathroom and reach for those pills again. Everywhere he looked, from the painted forest on the walls, to the stuffed deer in Harry’s clenched fists, to Harry himself. It all screamed James.
It was all a reminder of how the one person who vowed never to leave him, had gone and done exactly that.
Grabbing a crying Harry, Regulus tried rocking him back to sleep. When that didn’t work, he took them both downstairs to see if a warm bottle would subdue his screams. No such luck.
Harry kept crying and crying, with so much emotion of his little face Regulus almost a little bit jealous.
He hadn’t cried yet, he willed himself to cry, his partner of 8 years, was gone, and he hadn’t shed a single tear. Regulus couldn’t stand these subtle reminders of how bad a husband he was.
Refusing to step foot in the bedroom that was once dedicated to morning breath kisses and slightly drunken fucks, Regulus set Harry down in the spare bedroom.
He lay down next to him, his motivation to make his son stop crying long since evaporated. Instead, he allowed the screams die down as Harry eventually tired himself out.
In some sick way Regulus missed the noise. Without it he was left in silence, he was forced to remember, to face to fact that his husband’s death was entirely his fault.
Regulus didn’t sleep that night, getting out of bed only when Harry began to stir besides him.