Chapter 1
1977
Regulus
When you grow up in the Noble House of Black you are used to slaps and the burning pain unforgiving hands leave on your cheek. You know the reddish soreness you’re left to deal with on your own, but when Sirius slapped him, it wasn’t a muted red that if you were oblivious enough could pass as a blush, no, it was bloody and dark red, swearing to become a scar that would stay forever.
And not because he used more force, he was used to worse, so it really shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t hurt. His hands on his cheek shouldn’t hurt after that much time where even fleeting glances were nothing but a dream.
Regulus tries his best to keep his face neutral when he turns it back to face his brother.
“You’re 16, and you’ve already ruined your life”, Sirius is panting.
“I didn’t ruin my life”, and he almost wants to say Sirius, maybe just to see how he’d react or to hear the name spoken without resentment transforming the name into a curse word, but he does not.
Sirius blinks and it’s a behaviour he still remembers from their childhood, he still remembers how he’d blink instead of screaming and how he’d pull out three strands of hair and started braiding them until the house was quiet again.
Sirius turns around and leaves and it’s another behaviour he knows all too well, but he forces his thoughts away from that night and blinks before slipping through the door into the abandoned corridor that he knows no one will enter and he’ll be alone enough to pull himself back together.
He slides down one wall and stares out of the windows onto the lake where the first years are gliding over the water with their little lanterns and he can still remember when he was one of them, back when he had been excited to go to Hogwarts, because Sirius had promised that no one would him there.
Turns out he was the first to break that promise.
He hates that it doesn’t matter what he thinks of it goes back to him, his brother, but he can’t help it, because once not so long ago everything was linked to him and he can’t undo the knots that tied them together, no matter how hard he tries.
God, has he tried, and when that didn’t work, he tried to pretend they hadn’t been there in the first place and for a while that had worked, for a while he had succeeded, and he can still remember going to bed without tears spilling out his eyes and flashes of light giggles haunting him.
But then he had ruined it by trying to cut all ties once and for all, his hand covers the mark that caused his carefully pulled together charade to fall apart.
James
“So what?”, Remus was saying from his bed, tossing James’s broken snitch in the air.
“So”, James replied with faked annoyance in his tone, “I’ll lose every single one of my Captain privileges, and I’d moan about it day and night, you don’t want that, do you?”
“It would be worth it though. You agree don’t you, Pete?”, all three of them were lying in their beds, waiting for the dinner to begin, and were already planning their next pranks. They all knew for their final year they had to be amazing.
“I don’t know, Prongs does have a point”, his voice was rough and high pitched, sometimes when he was too tired to follow his mother’s rules, he thought that if someone heard his voice for the first time they’d flinch, because it doesn’t fit with his skinny body.
“Whatever, Pads would agree with me”, Remus’s voice on the other hand, people would probably kill for, it is dark and reminds him of rich honey and smoke, “Where is he anyway?”
He could feel his eyes dig into him, but the thing was James had no fucking clue, all he knew was that Sirius had told him that he had to do something and that he’d be back before he knew it.
Sirius had even tried to pull that classic ‘Sirius Black’ grin, but he could see the way his smile hadn’t reached his eyes and the crease between his eyebrows, but he hadn’t said anything, because a) he knew it wouldn’t change a thing and b) Sirius had been in a weird mood that entire day since they got on the train, and he hoped that maybe whatever he had to do could help.
But now it must have been hours and their bags had arrived, but he was still missing.
“I don’t know”, he hates that you could hear the worry just through these three words.
“He was in a really weird mood the entire train ride”, Peter chimes n, “Did he tell you anything, Prongs?”
And he knows that it wasn’t meant to harm him, but his words are another reminder of who he was, Sirius’s defender, the one who’s supposed to know everything about him, because they are brothers and he saved him and usually he was more than fine with that, but one days like these, he could feel the pressure it brought pushing him into the floor and bruising his shoulders.
“No”, he grits out eventually.
“I mean it’s not James’s job to know everything, he could’ve told anyone of us something”, Remus says lost in thought and God was James Fleamont Potter thankful for him sometimes, because he doesn’t even realise that he said anything special.
Because Remus doesn’t know how much he appreciated him holding no one accountable for Sirius or anyone for that matter, and how much relief those thoughtless words brought to him.
“Of course, of course”, Peter backtracks immediately, “I just thought, you know…”
He trails of like he expected someone to interrupt him, but instead it goes quiet, all lost in different thoughts.
“Catch”, Remus says after a few moments and throws the golden ball in his direction. James does not catch it, and it hits the bed once before bouncing down and rolling away, “Come on, I thought you are supposed to be good at this crap, Potter.”
He stresses ‘Potter’ funnily, like he is trying to mimic the other people on the quidditch team.
“Ha ha, you’re so funny”, he replies and grinning at him before continuing to speak, “but now you have to get up and get it back.”
“You didn’t catch him though”, he says, but he’s already sitting up and slipping off the bed with a slight headshake.
“Him?”
“Him. I named him during the Summer.”
“What’s his name?”, he asks amused while Remus finally crawls underneath the bed.
“Sucher”, it comes back muffled.
“What?”, they both ask and Remus only chuckles.
“Sucher, it means ‘Seeker’ in German, Sirius told me.”
“Why’d you name him?”, Peter asks and James thinks that maybe his voice wasn’t that bad, because now it makes this conversation seem even more bizarre.
“Felt appropriate for the snitch that James caught while being a Chaser”, he returns back to his bed, but not before winking at him.
That snitch had been Remus’s birthday gift, because as Sirius had explained “he was always playing with that thing anyway” and he had made them swear to not buy him anything big, it turned out to be the perfect present and not soon after that ball went everywhere with him.
His gaze shifts to the window and notices that the sun is hanging low over the lake. Quietly he wonders if someone else is looking at the lake right now as well.
“Do you reckon it’s dinner time soon?”, Remus asks in the comfortable silence.
“Yeah, let’s go”, he answers, eyes still on the lake, there is something that pulls him towards it, but he ignores it when he hears the others shuffling and getting up.
The door opens then, and Sirius entered.
He can tell that something was wrong, just from the way his shoulders are hanging lower, and his breaths are coming short und uncontrolled, and then he looks into his eyes. James notices the way they are glistening, his tear-stained face and he wants to grab him and shield him from any danger he ever had and ever will encounter.
But that’s when he notices that he isn’t looking back at him, his eyes are trained on Remus who is starring back at him and for a second, they seem to forget that they aren’t the only ones here, because Remus raises his eyebrows and Sirius just nods.
“Sirius?”, he says after another moment of them looking at only each other, his voice is soft.
Both of them snap out of it and Sirius finally looks at him with tired eyes and without even thinking James moves forward and wraps his arms around him tight like his mother used to when he was scared of the monsters under his bed and the shadows of his favourite stuffed bunny.
“What’s wrong?”, he doesn’t like how he says it, but ignores it and tries his best to comfort his best friend.
Sirius pulls away and walks to his bed on unsteady feet, he doesn’t turn around immediately, but takes a few seconds before he sits down and looks back at the three of them, who are looking back at him with confused faces.
“Well,”, his voice is strained and almost seems dry, “my brother is now officially a Death Eater”, the words come out louder as they must have been intended to, maybe to make his voice stronger by force.
“Oh”, Peter says quietly and that sums it up nicely.
James is the first one to find his voice back: “Do you want to talk?”
It’s careful, because one wrong word could mean complete shut-down.
“Not right now”, he sighs, wiping over his face once and blinking, “right now I want to eat.”
“Yeah, okay”, Remus says, turning around again, “let’s go eat then and watch some people get assigned to their houses.”
And that’s what they do. They walk down the stairs and along the corridors until they enter the half-filled Great Hall and sit down where they sat the years before.
He’s sitting next to Sirius, and he restrains himself from starring at him, scared of scaring him away and leaving him to deal with this alone, instead he tries to make conversation with the others.
“Do you know anyone that’s coming here this year?”, he asks the others who shake their head.
“Why do you?”, Remus asks.
“Yeah, a friend of my mother’s daughter, she’ll most definitely end up in Hufflepuff.”
He used to babysit her when their mother’s would go on a little “girl trip” they’d call it, but over time he’d realize what it really was, rehab. Rehab for the muggle mother that was left with a little magic girl and no power to take care of it.
Remus and Peter chuckle and soon they are talking about stereotypes of the houses and other mindless things with Lily and the others who joined shortly after while Sirius sits next to them, seemingly frozen.
^^^
James does not know what to do. Has no fucking clue actually, they’re back in their dorm, Peter is in the bathroom while Remus’s nose is buried in a book and Sirius is laying on his bed starring at the ceiling. He knows he should try to talk to him, but he also knows he shouldn’t force him to talk.
He’s clueless, it’s a weird feeling, normally he knows what to do, but he hadn’t had to deal with a brother issue for two years and back then he hadn’t been as thoughtful, back then he’d just ask and accepted the answer, but he had matured since then or at least he hopes it was maturing that had made him this clueless.
“Sirius?”, Remus asks.
“Yeah?”
“Want a cigarette?”
“Yeah.”
And he isn’t jealous, because that would be stupid, but Remus knew what to say, how to get him out of the bed even if only for a cigarette and he didn’t, maybe he wouldn’t have said anything at all and that’s a horrible thought to have.
He watches as they sit at the opened window and smoke starts to surround them and finally, he speaks:
“Do you wanna talk about it, Pads?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. He chose his side, he’s done it”, he puffs a small cloud of smoke, until it’s hiding his face.
“How do you feel about it?”, he tries again, because he can’t let him down.
“It’s just, I should have known, right? I mean, it was obvious he was going to do it. But I still hoped that maybe someday he’d come …ba- around”, his voice is shaky and raspy.
James can still remember when he’d have said ‘come back’ without hesitating, but they all grew up over time, he guesses.
“You couldn’t have known”, he says, trying his best to keep his voice soft and gentle, because that’s something he’s good at, “it was never obvious what he was going to do.”
Sirius stares at him for a second before sighing and looking out the window: “Maybe, but I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”
And to that he doesn’t have an answer.
“Thanks for the cigarette, Moony”, he gets up and walks into the bathroom when Peter walks out smelling like fresh mint.
Remus and he share a look before he finishes his cigarette and gets his bathroom bag from his trunk and then there’s James with brushed teeth and in an old T-shirt of his father and pants and not a clue what to do now.
He lays back in his bed, looking up at the ceiling, remembering the day and noticing all the little times he could have asked what’s wrong before it boiled over and ended with Sirius looking like hell.
The worst thing is he was so excited to return to Hogwarts one more time, maybe because the War had been getting more and more violent that this seemed like a safe haven or just because this had been the only thing that hasn’t changed over the last seven years or maybe for some other reason.
But then he had walked to the toilet and once he returned something changed, he was brooding, starring out the window, not listening and zoning out. James should have asked him then, but he had been excited to return too, and decided that it couldn’t be that bad. How could he have been so stupid?
He wants to apologise, but he’s aware that Sirius would say that he isn’t his responsibility, no, this is something he has to make up not apologise.
And not just because he didn’t ask, but because after seven years he still doesn’t know how to properly comfort him after they’ve been through hell and back and were at each other’s side through it all, he didn’t know what to do.
There are footsteps, but he doesn’t look whose, he stays buried in his thoughts until Sirius speaks once more:
“Anyone want to join me on the floor?”
He lays down next to him and soon Peter and Remus are laying there too in a circle with their heads almost touching in the middle and their feet the furthest apart, it reminds him of how they used to lay there when they were still innocent and young and curious and carefree.
“You guys know what really annoys me?”, Sirius says without giving time to answer, “That I had to learn it from fucking Snape, I mean, who else? But still.”
“That’s rough, mate”, Remus laughs.
“That’s what I thought.”
“What did you say to him?”, Peter asks in the round.
“Just tried to make him listen, but of course he wouldn’t. Tried to tell him that he’s ruining his life, but…”, he trails off.
They stay like that for a while, just the four of them and soon Peter is softly snoring beside him and just from the way that Remus is breathing, he knows that he’s gone too.
“James?”, Sirius whispers into the silence.
“Sirius”, he whispers back.
“I miss him”, it’s raw and honest and hidden by the dark of night.
“I know you do, and you’re allowed to.”
“Do you think he misses me?”, and it feels like they’re sixteen again, he’s just run away from his parents and him, they are both unsure and scared, but they know that he’s safe now and Sirius finally lets himself ask questions he didn’t even dare to think before.
“He must”, he responds.
“Sometimes I really, really hate him”, he pauses, “but it’s actually just my parents.”
“I hate them too.”
“James, he looked horrible, like it was eating him alive, and he was allowing it, he wasn’t even fighting it”, his voice is weak, making him sound young and defeated.
“Maybe he’ll fight it one day”, is all he knows to say, but it seems to be enough.
“One day.”
“One day.”
James stays awake until he can hear the even breathing of all his friends next to him, until he’s sure that they are free of nightmares and until the sun peeks out again. He keeps his eyes open and makes a plan that may be flawed but might just work.
Regulus
Regulus misses dinner. He doesn’t see the hopeful children get sorted into their houses and the plates refilling as soon as they’re emptied, he also misses how affected Sirius is by all of this. He doesn’t know. Doesn’t know that in the same building his brother can feel the blood he spilt across his cheek as well.
Since he doesn’t know, all he thinks about is his brother that used to protect him from being slapped, slapping with force, and leaving bruises, all because he finally did something for himself and while that thing may be a burden now, it had been his decision.
He slapped me .
He slapped me.
He slapped me.
The last one hurts him the most, it stabs with a poisoned knife and twists any time he can’t stop his thoughts from returning to the ugly bare truth.
Whatever lie he had told himself that he still cared was officially ruined, he didn’t have a brother anymore.
“I don’t have a brother”, something his parents had tried to convince him had been the truth since he was fifteen, but he had tried to hold off and keep away from his body, but it has finally caught up with him and it turns out they were right all along.
But what hurts more than that is that Sirius still has a brother, he didn’t lose everything, he only lost a person he hadn’t talked to in years. He didn’t lose his brother; he only lost a blood relative.
James is his brother, and he must be better at it too. Because what wouldn’t he do perfectly.
When Regulus finally slips into bed that night, he’s sure he must be the last one awake, must be last one whose thoughts are not letting him rest, but are keeping him awake with wide eyes and flashes of memories filling the empty night.
Peter is the first one to wake, it’s no surprise to James, sometimes he thinks that he just has an alarm clock in his mind waking him up exactly when he needs to. He closes his eyes when he hears him stir beside him and waits until his feet carry him into the bathroom.
If he had to guess he’d say Remus would be the next one, but he knows that it could very well be Sirius as well, most of the time they wake up at the same time, almost like their inner clocks are synchronized.
“Good morning”, Remus mumbles at him before walking towards the bathroom as well and turns out he was right as Sirius wakes up only a few seconds later and follows the others.
He stays on the ground, James doesn’t feel like standing up yet, his mind is still too heavy and too many thoughts are weighing it down.
But, he thinks, at least Sirius got up and it may be, because they slept on the floor the first time in forever, but it’s still something good and so he stops his mind from focusing on the words they whispered last night and gets up as well.
His steps are heavier than normal, he’s not sure why, but maybe because his body is preparing for the execution of his plan:
Talk to Regulus Black.
No, that seems like betrayal.
Talk to Regulus Black for Sirius Black.
Better.
He gets dressed while the others brush their teeth, he has never understood people that brush them before a meal, it does not make sense to him, and, God, has he tried to convince his best friends otherwise, but, no, he has to share the room with three before meal teeth-brusher.
In the Great Hall Lily is already sitting at her seat next to Remus and waves at them with a smile.
“You’re in a good mood”, Remus sighs as they sits down.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Remus is already loading his plate while responding: “Because it’s early in the morning and the first of classes.”
“But it’s the last first day, so cheer the fuck up.”
Remus grins at her and they start another bicker because that’s Remus and Lily, the two of them with their understanding for each other that no one else has and the fleeting glances that nobody but them would ever get. When the friendship first formed, he was sure that they’d become a couple soon enough, but weirdly there was yet something to happen between them.
It couldn’t be long though; James thinks and Merlin was he wrong.
Sirius has yet to join the conversation, his gaze is on his empty plate and his eyes look tired almost lifeless, he wants to do something, send a spark in his figure, and bring it to life again, but there’s nothing to do.
He’s distracted by another Black entering the hall and sitting down at the Slytherin table, Regulus looks horrible, that much James can tell even when they are meters apart. Just from the way his shoulders seem to fall, and his head is hanging low over his empty plate.
It’s another behaviour they have in common, he can almost see his eyes barely opened and lifeless starring down onto the plate.
“Where are Mary and Marlene?”, Sirius asks with feigned lightness in his voice.
“Didn’t feel like breakfast and “will kill me if I interrupt their sleep one more time”.”
They keep the conversation going, but once again his focus shifts to the boy in the black rope that seem to drown him and make him look small and fragile, he watches as another boy joins him, Evan Rosier, and he tries to talk to him, but then Regulus glances up and for a second their eyes meet and his body seems to prepare for battle, because adrenaline spikes though him and he has no power to look away first.
Regulus has and does.
James averts his eyes and tries his best to remain collected, because that was not supposed to happen, he wasn’t supposed to notice him starring at him, but he did and technically that could mean that the entire thing is blown, because if he tells his friend he’ll never be able to talk to him without Evan interrupting.
He sneaks another glance at them, but he isn’t there anymore, his gaze shifts to the door and there he can make out the tip of his rope.
“I forgot my book in the dorm”, he says, eyes still on the door, “I’m going to get it, see you guys later.”
He doesn’t let anyone respond and stands up a bit quicker than he should have, but that doesn’t matter he walks to the door.
Once the door falls shut behind him, he looks around trying to see another black tip to know where he went, but the halls are empty and there are too many footsteps echoing through the corridor to be able to pinpoint where he must have gone.
But something pulls him to the right, like he can almost taste the essence that the Black brothers carry along with them in the air, like he’s being led by gentle hands and tender touches.
It’s an unused corridor, no classes are being held here and James could have sworn that not even the elves clean it, but it’s as clean as everything else. Then he hears it, small footsteps echoing back to him from the other side of the door next to him.
“Washing rooms” is written next to it and with red paint:
OUT OF ORDER
He presses his ear against the door, trying to make out any words or sounds that indicate if it’s safe for him to enter, but the only thing he hears are the quiet footsteps like Regulus is pacing. Weirdly it almost reminds him of a prank they pulled a few years back when they tried to make the sink explode with blue paint and had stayed at the door listening to their first victims.
But then they had hidden underneath his invisibility cloak and it had been such a lovely day. He takes a big breath before slowly tightening his grip on the door knob and he starts to turn when he hears it.
A broken sob. And then another. And another just as bad as the one before.
It sounds like they are ripping him apart, leaving him with cuts and slashes in a pool of blood, and it reminds him of Sirius because that’s how he cries too. James wonders if they ever cried like that together, like they are being drained of life and their bodies are the only thing still fighting through loud sobs while their minds are shut down and have given up.
Maybe when they wept together it was easier to pretend that anyone cared about it.
“He slapped me ”, his shaky voice forces out in between sobs and maybe if he wasn’t occupied by feeling his heart break, he could have appreciated how beautiful his voice still sounds even when he’s falling apart.
“He slapped me”, his voice repeats, but this time the word ‘slapped’ is anger and hatred, like it is something that has betrayed him and deserves revenge.
It’s quiet then, he can hear uncontrolled breathing, but there are no more cries, and no more words reach his ears, he almost thinks that he has calmed down and it about to come out, he gets up and is ready to leave, when Regulus speaks again.
“ He slapped me.”
Soon the air is filled with open sobs again and James can’t run away, he slides down the door and listens to the paralysing sobs without moving.
James is stunned by the emotion behind the three words, no, that’s not true, he’s silenced by the pain in “he”.
It’s like a child said it after their best friend stabbed them in the back and they don’t understand why or how.
Something broke Regulus so strong that he has become a child again, but this time there’s no one there to comfort him, and when he gets up, James starts to wonder if he ever had had anyone in the first place.
Because Sirius didn’t, Sirius didn’t have the reassuring hug of a mother and dark voice of a father keeping him company in the darkest nights.
But then it dawns on him, Sirius had Regulus and then Sirius had James.
Who does Regulus have now? He wonders but judging from the broken sobs and utter loneliness he bathed in, he guesses that he’s alone again.
As he starts walking towards his first class another question occupies his mind:
“Who slapped him?”
And when he slides into his seat next to Sirius and smiles at him, he hopes for one thing and one thing only.
“Please don’t let it be Sirius.”