Chapter Text
REGULUS
Over the next four hours, Regulus sees Krethar tumble down the stairs another thirty times.
The image loops endlessly, his mind refusing to let it go, and he’s reminded of how easily he’d been shoved aside, how he hadn’t reached out in time, how his hands had cramped and locked as if they belonged to someone else. The portraits had screamed on the walls until the sound drowned everything, and Regulus hadn’t moved at all. He hadn’t been able to.
Sirius had done the work. And Sirius had left. Again .
There’s a common denominator, if he thinks about it, in the anatomy of each and every one of his miseries, each and every one of his bad days. He’s at the very center of it. His mind has always worked tirelessly to justify it, to protect itself from more damage by pushing the blame outside, to coat everything in pride so thick nothing could get past it. But he’s bare, now, faced with the reality of it: Sirius left because of him. Krethar died because of his failure. And before that there was James, injured because of Regulus’ inability to carry out his plan, and Nelle, who got bound to him because he couldn’t fathom turning away from his Mother’s path.
He couldn’t even protect his own head, his own fortress, despite the fact that he’d rather blow himself up before losing his mind. He handed her his memories on a silver platter, and stayed to watch her rip them all apart.
The glass is cold under his forehead, and it’s as though he’s falling instead of sitting down. The car’s music is a frantic pulse against the glass, another layer of noise clawing at his ears, but he hardly hears it over the chaos in his own head. Beside him, Colin drives one-handed, a cigarette clamped between his teeth, the other hand working the stick with absent ease. There’s a half-eaten sandwich on his lap, a leftover from their stop at Watford Gap Services, where Regulus had stood in a blur of headlights and strangers while Colin complained about “ridiculously overpriced, greasy crap.” He’d still eaten four sandwiches in a row, stolen a stack of paper plates, picked a fight with a very large man, and nearly swerved into a tree.
There’s a smear of grease on the cuff of Regulus’ shirt. He rubs at it and only spreads it further, another small failure on top of all the rest. The car takes a hard curve, and he’s slammed against the door, his knees hitting the compartment in front of him. The whole car rattles like a broom in storm winds, and Regulus’ hand clenches tight around the handle, ready to wrench the door open if it all starts falling apart. It’s a kind of magic, he supposes, this Muggle way of coaxing life into metal and glass, but without the steady hum of spells he can’t trust it. He checks for his wand in his sleeve again, and for the Stone in his pocket, just to be sure everything is still intact.
The next song starts—a few letters chanted over and over, like some hypnotic spell—and Colin joins in, half wrong, half grinning like a maniac. Regulus stares out the window at the smear of trees, pretending not to hear until Colin breaks the silence between them.
“You don’t know this one?”
Colin is watching him from the corner of his eye. Regulus sighs and shakes his head.
“Bloody hell, really? It’s been everywhere. Blokes love it. Especially in clubs.”
Regulus doesn’t answer. Colin keeps going anyway.
“You could pull off the cowboy, if you got some sun. Or you don’t swing that way?”
Regulus blinks, slow. “What?”
“Nothing. You probably don’t know who he is, either.” Colin laughs it off, tapping the wheel in time with the song. Smoke curls from the end of his cigarette, slipping out through the cracked window. Then, quieter, almost to himself, he mutters, “I figured maybe you’d had a row with your folks. Showed up covered in blood, holding this—thing.” He nods toward the Cloak bundled on Regulus’ lap. “Could’ve been family. Kicked out for—well, you know. It happens. Always been tough for us.”
“No,” Regulus says sharply. No, as in he doesn’t know what happens, but also no , it’s probably not what he’s insinuating—even though it is , kind of. But he doesn’t owe the man that information about himself.
Colin glances at him again but lets it drop. The car jolts over a bump, hard enough that Regulus hits the ceiling with his head. He groans, rubbing at it, and Colin chuckles under his breath.
Another stretch of silence follows, broken only by the whine of the engine and the rattle of the frame, until Colin speaks again. “So how d’you know Graham, then?”
Regulus goes stiff. He’s got a pretty good idea who Graham is—he remembers the talking device hidden in a closet, a while ago—, but he’s not sure what Colin knows about him.
He settles for, “We met through someone.”
“Who?”
“Does it matter?”
Colin grins. The sun is starting to filter through the clouds after hours of muddied darkness, making his long hair shine golden around his head. He pulls the black-and-red scarf higher around his neck. “Just curious. You don’t seem like his type.”
“What’s his type ?”
“Blokes he can pull.”
“Pull?”
“Chat up. Get off with.” Colin flicks the cigarette out of the window. “Whatever you want to call it.”
Regulus does not see what the point of this conversation is. He shrugs dismissively. “I see.”
“I met him last year at a pub around King’s Cross. Kept running into him after that.” Colin stops briefly after that, scratching his sideburn. “He’s alright. A bit of a git, mind you, but good for a laugh.”
Regulus’ jaw tightens. “And you assume me and him are—”
“Nah, I was pulling your leg. Just thought you were one of his mates.”
Mates. The idea of being anything other than distant acquaintances with Pettigrew sits uncomfortably in Regulus’ chest. “We’re not mates .”
“Alright.” Colin pulls out another cigarette, sparks it against some strange glowing button on the dash, and keeps humming off-key with the radio, like the conversation never happened.
And the car continues on, rattling and whining, the road stretching endlessly ahead.
JAMES
Breakfast is awful, just like he expected it to be. Not the food—the food’s always great—, but at the table, it’s quiet. Too quiet.
Sirius isn’t there. He wasn’t in the room when James came back hours later, and what he found instead was Remus—shaken, frantic, nearly tearing his own hair out by the roots. The plastic bag was abandoned on the floor; James asked about the pills, and Remus told him he’d flushed them down the toilet. James cried after that, more than he wants to admit, while Remus buried himself in his DADA advanced prep book. It was strange, sitting there together like that: James breaking apart quietly while Remus recited spellwork as if clinging to it. At some point, around five, James pulled the book out of his hands, and neither of them fought it. Peter returned not long after, half-frozen and gasping, just as the first light hit the mountains. Said Peeves had chased his rat form five floors up, and judging by the state of him, James didn’t doubt it.
Now, they sit at the table in stark silence, and Remus is chewing through his plate like he hasn’t eaten in days, Peter is pulling his bread apart into little clumps, dropping them on the table like he’s building a nest, and James is just staring blankly at the wall. Lily keeps giving him looks, trying to catch his attention, and he’s doing his best to avoid her. So far he has successfully ignored ten different Gryffindors who have come to him in various stages of grief, asking if he’s going to be able to play—he doesn’t need any more questions, about Sirius or his leg.
But, finally, as they stand up to head to their first class—Charms with Ravenclaw—, Lily speaks up:
“Sirius is not down yet?”
James stabs his spoon into his porridge, looking at it standing straight, and shrugs. “Nope.”
She narrows her eyes, clearly not buying it, but James doesn’t care. He grabs his crutch and lets Remus lead the way out of the Hall, ignoring the way everyone’s staring at their pathetic parade.
Charms doesn’t go any better. The words won’t line up in his head, not the way Flitwick wants, not with everything else clogging his mind—so they jump and blur on the page, swapping themselves around before he’s halfway through the incantation, and by the time he’s got them steady enough to speak, the spell fizzles out completely.
Flitwick sighs, disappointed, then moves on to Peter and Remus. Five minutes later, Peter sets his sleeve on fire, Remus puts it out with a lazy flick, and Sirius’ chair is still empty.
Lily leans over from the row behind him. “ James .”
He doesn’t look at her, but she doesn’t falter. She leans in even closer, until her long hair tickles the back of his neck. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“James, I swear to God —” But she’s interrupted when someone blows up their spellbook on the other side, and James does not answer her again.
DADA is even worse. They’re paired with Slytherins and Sixth Years from the advanced group, and to James’ immense displeasure, he has Snape exactly in his line of sight.
Greaves immediately ruins James’ concentration for the day when he snaps his fingers at Snape and asks, “Where’s Regulus Black?”, like the guy is meant to have the answer.
“No idea,” drawls Snape.
James, pathetically, would also love to know. His stomach is so tight he feels like throwing up every five minutes, and his hand is clenching around his wand, sweaty and too tight. Sirius should be here, too, ignoring his brother and throwing paper balls at Snape’s head when the professor’s not looking. But he’s not, and neither is Regulus, and so James has to stare longingly at the empty seats they’ve left behind.
Greaves sends a Fifth Year Slytherin to look for Regulus in the Common Room and dorms, and James feels like crying again. Pointedly, he realizes Greaves never asked about Sirius. Remus must see that too, because his hands clench into fists next to James on the table.
Greaves, as clueless as ever, decides it’s the perfect day to go over non-verbal shield charms. “ Block a stream of stingers without saying a word ”—that’s the assignment.
James doesn’t stand a chance. His head won’t stay in place, and his shield flickers once, then gives up entirely before the first spell even reaches him. He finds himself on the floor, flat on his back, as Lily angrily reminds Greaves that James is injured now, and shouldn’t even be taking spells in the first place.
Lily’s, Remus’ and Snape’s charms are the only ones that hold, and James can’t even feel happy about the well-earned house points when everything else has fallen apart. He sees Sirius with his feet up on the table, two rows to the front, and Regulus with his pale nape and crisp white shirt and slim hands holding an intricate quill.
He wants them back—both of them.
And for both, he now feels like it’s too late.
REGULUS
The hours blur after Preston. The roads grow narrower, curling through stone hedges and uneven ground, and the land stretches wider and emptier with every mile—rolling hills, valleys that dip into long shadows, entire stretches of nothing Regulus has never seen before. It feels like driving into a painting with half the details missing.
They stop a few more times, at roadside restaurants that smell faintly of grease and old beer. Each one looks identical to the last, but the food ranges from edible to catastrophic. A petite blonde waitress leans on the table at one of them and asks Regulus for his number , whatever that means, and Colin smirks under his nose for the next half hour like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened. At a petrol station later, they stock up on food Regulus has never even heard of— Penguin bars, Wagon Wheels, Curly Wurlys —all wrapped in bright, gaudy colors that make them look more like toys than meals. He eyes the packets with suspicion, but Colin tosses them into the backseat anyway. He does offer them to Regulus a while later, but he refuses to get food poisoning, so Colin eats all of them in the span of half an hour.
The car jolts so violently when a sheep shuffles into the road that Regulus nearly flies out the window. Colin swears, slamming his foot down on the small pedal, and the car shudders to a stop just in time. They both sit frozen, watching as the animal wanders off without a care, chewing at nothing, its eyes blank and stupid. Colin doesn’t ask if Regulus is alright, and Regulus doesn’t bother to curse him for reckless endangerment. The moment passes, swallowed by the dusty road.
As the miles drag on, Colin grows quieter, muttering only when he swerves too sharp or when the small mirror hanging from the ceiling starts shaking like it might fall off. The smoke from his endless cigarettes clouds the inside the car, and Regulus doesn’t know what’s in them, but after the sixth, his head feels heavy and foggy, slowing everything down. He thinks briefly of rolling down the window, but the wind screams too loudly when it’s open, so he puts up with the fog instead.
Silence suits him better, anyway. It’s steadier than questions, and kinder than any thought he could conjure in his head. He keeps his eyes fixed on the view outside: passing stone walls, fields swarmed with sheep, flashes of water shimmering in the distance. Everything here looks older, stranger, more feral than anything south of London.
But later, the monotony of it all—the smoke, the hum of the engine, the endless stretch of grey road ahead—wears him down, and he barely registers his head tipping back against the cold window, his eyelids falling. He tells himself he’s only closing them for a moment, just enough to shut everything else out. But when his head slips farther, pressing against the door, the world goes dark.
He dreams of trees, and crows, and house-elves crammed into cars. He dreams of James in moonlit forests with antlers sprouting from his head. And that’s his world, the only place where he doesn’t fail. His own head is a fortress, walls rising high and unbroken. He clings to that thought even in his sleep: he won’t let them fall again.
JAMES
By the time the last period ends, James is one bad look away from hexing someone.
After Defence, he had a free period, which he spent hiding from his teammates’ inquisitive looks and questions about the frankly pitiful state of his leg. Instead, he polished up his broom in his bedroom, applied more salve to the cut, and waited for Remus and Peter to come back to go and have lunch with them.
Remus walked out in the middle of it, probably fed up with Sirius’ absence, and Peter spent the rest looking down at his plate, prodding a sad-looking potato like it might reveal Sirius’ whereabouts if he jabbed it hard enough. Lily finally gave up trying to get anything out of them, and she focused on her Head Girl duties instead, scolding Peter for wasting food and James for eating too little.
Then came Potions, and James can hardly remember a thing about it despite sitting through the whole class. What sticks is Slughorn noticing Regulus’ absence—and making such a show of concern that he marched out to fetch the Slytherin Head Girl himself.
James stumbles down the corridor, broom clattering against the stone floor. He’s exhausted, bone-deep, and everything feels wrong. The castle feels emptier without Sirius or Regulus, like someone ripped the air out of it. The usual noise—the voices, the laughter, the hurried footsteps—doesn’t even comfort him anymore. It just grates his nerves.
And he hates it. He hates feeling like this. He wishes he could fix it with a spell, with a joke, with something . But he can’t.
And he’s never broken anything so badly he couldn’t fix it.
Some of his teammates catch up to him on the way to the Pitch, three of them at once—an ambush of scarlet scarves and anxious faces. Nora starts in on Gryffindor’s odds against Hufflepuff next month, Leo mutters about “new plays we could run without you pushing yourself too hard,” and Finn blurts out if he’s dying, earning an elbow in the ribs and one of Nora’s killer glares.
James grits his teeth, forcing a grin he doesn’t feel, and waves them off. “All under control,” he lies, because what else is he supposed to say? That it feels like the floor’s dropped out from under him? That the empty chairs in class are louder than a Bludger to the head?
He drags himself to the pitch anyway, his glasses foggy and the January wind biting his face. The others—no Sirius, of course, just Calla and Rhys—are already up in the air, their shouts loud and careless.
The broom’s tip sinks in the wet grass, the snow half-melted under warming charms. James swallows the knot in his throat and shoves it down where it can’t touch him. He straightens his back and picks up his pace. He can move fast. It’s easy . All he has to do is want it bad enough.
But his thigh has other ideas. Every step sends fire shooting down his leg, sharp enough to make his eyes sting. He blinks hard, furious at himself, furious at the pain, and shoves the tears back down.
“Oi, Cap!” Rhys yells from above. James tilts his head back, watching the scarlet-and-gold blurs streaking across the sky—swooping low, then looping high, moving together like they were born for it. His chest tightens with longing.
Merlin, he’s missed this.
He’s spent an entire week stuck inside, staring at stone walls, glaring at his leg like it might fix itself if he wished for it hard enough.
They touch down in front of him, their grins wide and easy, both brooms picking up wet bits of grass.
“About bloody time,” Calla says, cheeks flushed from the cold and red hair pulled back tight. She’s grinning, but then she takes a closer look and it drops. “What’s wrong with you? Where’s Black?”
James flashes her his biggest, toothy grin, the reckless one that usually earns an eye-roll from everyone except Finn.
See? Fine. Totally fine .
“Sirius wasn’t feeling great,” he lies easily. “Let’s just get to it, yeah?”
He shifts the broom in his grip, ignoring the way his thigh trembles just to keep him upright. He takes a step forward, but it’s too quick.
His knee gives.
He crashes down, the broom clattering out of his hand. Heat floods his face as shame barrels through him, and suddenly he’s on the ground, surrounded by his team. He pushes himself up before Calla can reach him, brushing snow off his robes with frantic, furious motions. “I’m fine,” he pants. “I just—slipped.”
She doesn’t buy it. None of them do. Rhys has stepped closer, too, face tight, his eyes flicking from James’ leg to the broom, and back to James’ face.
James ignores them. His hands shake as he picks up the broom. He sets it upright again and mounts it, something he’s done dozens, hundreds of times, ever since he got that little toy broom when he was four. He knows how it works, in fact, Muggles could probably do it too—and yet, his leg now refuses to swing over right, his thigh flat-out refuses to hold him steady, and he nearly faceplants again.
“No—don’t—” Rhys starts forward, but James waves him back sharply.
“Let me. Try,” he hisses. He grips the handle, breath shallow, clenching his jaw so hard he’ll probably break a tooth. He whispers to the broom, like he’s always done, pleading: “ Come on, just this once, please .”
His brooms have never failed him, not once—and he knows and trusts his own skill, he has been cocky about it in the past; and he treasures his bond with his brooms, he’s reliant on it to play as well as he does. So for a single, impossible second, he believes it’ll really happen. That he’ll push off, rise into the air, and everything will fade away—the pain, the hex, the looks. Just James Potter, where he belongs. The Captain he used to be.
He kicks off.
Nothing .
His leg gives, and the broom skids to the side, brushing over the grass. He ends up on his knees, doubled over, breath ragged.
The silence from the team is louder than any roar of the crowd he’s ever heard. His heart is bleeding in his chest. Still, James laughs, harsh and breathless, like maybe if he laughs first, no one else will do it for him. He clutches the broom tighter, pressing his forehead against the polished wood. His chest is heaving, his throat raw.
“I just need… a bit more practice,” he says, but his voice cracks.
“James, stop .” It’s Nora this time, her voice low but firm as she hands her broom to Finn and strides closer. The look on her face is of pure pity, and James hates it more than anything.
“I’ve got it,” James insists, shifting his weight again, trying to get back up on his feet. “I just—just need to warm up.”
“Seriously, Cap, you’re—”
“ Fine ,” James snaps, too sharp, too fast. “I’m fine.” He manages to stand up using the broom to hold his weight, and he wipes his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “Just let me try—”
“What is happening here?”
The words hit like a hex. James freezes, head snapping around to see Madame Hooch striding across the pitch, boots crunching in the frozen grass. She’s not tall—James has at least a head on her—but she radiates the kind of authority that makes even seventh-years shrink. On a bad day, she’s as scary as a three-headed dragon.
Under one arm she’s got the box of balls, clearly there to hand them out.
James scrambles to straighten up. “Evening, Ma’am,” he says, the grin coming automatically, bright and big and easy. “Just catching up with the team, you know. Bit stiff from the break, that’s all.”
She doesn’t buy it for a second. Her eyes snap down to his leg, to the way he’s leaning on the broom like it’s a crutch but trying to make it look like he isn’t.
“Potter.” Her voice is sharp enough to make everyone squirm. “Off the broom. Now .”
James laughs—too loudly. “No, seriously, I’m all right—”
“I said off . And give it here.” Her hand is outstretched, steady, toward his broom.
The team is watching, every single one of them dead silent. James feels his face burn hotter than firewhisky. He falters under the weight of it, but he clings to the act anyway, as if he’s drowning and it’s his last hope of survival. He keeps that stupid smirk plastered across his mouth, and suddenly it tastes like blood where he’s bitten the inside of his cheek.
“Really, Ma’am, it’s nothing—”
“Don’t argue with me, Potter!” she barks.
The shout reverberates across the pitch, and James flinches like he was actually hit. She has never— ever —raised her voice at him before. It falls cold over his shoulders, the humiliation of the fall paling in comparison. He swallows hard, blinking furiously, his throat tight. His hands shake as he presses the broom into her palm, the wood slipping against his sweaty grip. His lip stings when he bites down harder, trying to stop the tears in his eyes. He won’t—he won’t cry here, not in front of them, not like this.
He nods curtly and turns on his heel. Nobody stops him as he limps toward the gates of the pitch, his shoulders tense, every step a cutting stab up his leg. He doesn’t even look back. He just keeps walking, fast as his bloody ruined leg will take him, the sound of his fall still echoing in his ears, like a door slamming shut. He rips the gloves off and flings them down, then shrugs out of the bracers, then the jerkin, and he knows he’ll be back to pick them up later, but he does not care. It’s all too big inside him, now—the rage, the fear, the helplessness—and he doesn’t know what else to do with it.
He kicks the door open, and goes to find Peter.
If he can’t fly, that’s fine . But he can damn well pick Regulus up at Dufftown.