Chapter Text
The Sorting Hat had called him Slytherin, and his parents had called it destiny.
Fate.
A righting of wrongs.
The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black had their heir, after all, in their youngest son Regulus.
The son who listened. The son who stayed. The son who did not shout or burn bridges or rip himself loose from the careful and bloody architecture of tradition.
Pureblood faith was not preached; it was performed. Even—especially—at Hogwarts. Hiding behind words like heritage and standards, wrapping itself in etiquette and expectation until it passed for righteousness. It lived in the polished manners of fellow students sneering at Muggleborns, in the way blood traitors were discussed with more venom than any actual criminals in Azkaban Prison.
Boys boasting about their ancient names whilst hexing first-years for sport, girls speaking reverently of honor whilst laughing at the suffering of those they deemed lesser.
They called it tradition.
Regulus called it practice.
He practiced smiling at the right moments. Practiced agreement. He was good at it. He had been raised to be—knowing when to speak and, more importantly, when to stay silent. His family would be so pleased to know how seamlessly he fit into the shape they had carved for him.
The Blacks had raised Regulus on inevitability. Choice was a word reserved for people without responsibility, without lineage pressing down on them with the weight of the world. Love was conditional, approval was earned, silence was survival.
Sirius had been the one who had taught him that.
And Regulus had followed those rules better than Sirius ever could. That was the unspoken expectation now, to compensate, to correct the narrative that his brother had torn open and left bleeding. Regulus would be the proof that the family had not failed. That the rot had been excised.
Their parents were...meticulous, in their love. It had always been conditional, contractual. The two boys had learned quickly that pride was not given, it was only earned through compliance. Sirius had broken the contract, and Regulus understood the terms better now.
In bed some nights, Regulus pressed his fingers to his bare forearm, measuring, on the skin where his future was waiting. Wondering, not for the first time, why something so supposedly righteous felt so much like being cornered.
Sometimes, he felt like he couldn't really breathe, beneath the weight of it all.
Sometimes, he replayed Sirius's laughter in his head and wondered when it had stopped belonging to him. Wondered if he thought of him when he was laughing with the Potters, or if Regulus had already been filed away as another thing that he'd escaped.
His parents had declared Sirius a traitor. Regulus suspected he had simply been brave first. Their father spoke constantly of strength, but Sirius had been the strongest of them all, and they had not been able to break him fully. That was the part that nobody acknowledged.
Walburga called him ungrateful, Orion called him misguided, but nobody called Sirius brave.
As if the Sorting Hat hadn't put him in Gryffindor.
And somewhere between his destiny and utter damnation, Regulus Black had begun to quietly fracture.
Which is how he found himself, once again, making his way up to the Astronomy Tower, past curfew.
The castle always felt so different at night. The stone walls whispered more freely when they though no one important was listening. The staircases shifted for him tonight without complaint, obedient in the way Hogwarts sometimes was when it sensed intention. He kept his wand tucked away, though his fingers continuously brush its familiar weight through his robes.
The Astronomy Tower was a habit now—an indulgence he pretended was coincidence. High enough to breathe. Far enough from the dormitories to think.
Being beneath the lake like that was suffocating, most nights.
The air grew colder the higher he climbed, the warmth of the lower floors leaching away until his breath ghosted faintly in front of him, the chill of the early October night pushing through the stone. He welcomed it. Cold was bracing. Cold kept him sharp. Reminded him that he was still here.
When he pushes open the narrow door at the top of the tower, it protests softly on its hinges, a thin, aching sound that gives him pause, listening. Silence answered back. No footsteps. Just the distant hoot of an owl, the faint lapping of water far below.
Stars spilled across the sky in careless abundance, bright and sharp and impossibly distant. The wind tugs at his robes, playful and persistent, carrying the scent of early frost and stone and something older, something endless. Below, the grounds stretched out in shadow and silver, the Black Lake reflecting fragments of moonlight like broken glass.
Regulus crosses over to the edge and rests his hands against the cold stone parapet. He doesn't lean too far. He never leans too far. But he looks down anyway, letting the height settle into his bones, grounding him. Up here, the world felt smaller. Manageable. Reduced to shapes and distances and things he could name.
Up here, he could breathe a little easier.
He exhales slowly, breath trembling just a fraction, forearms pressing against the stone, sleeves slipping back enough for the night air to kiss his skin.
The mark was not there yet. Not really. Only an absence, a waiting. A promise that everyone else seemed so certain he would be grateful for.
Destiny, they would call it. Duty.
Regulus closes his eyes.
The memory came unbidden: Sirius at the top of the stairs at Grimmauld Place, chin lifted in defiance, eyes bright with fury and something like joy. Sirius who had burned bridges because he refused to cross them quietly. Sirius who had left a vacuum behind him that Regulus had been expected to fill, neatly and without complaint.
“I’m not like you,” Regulus murmurs into the wind, though he wasn’t sure whether it was a reassurance or accusation.
The stars, predictably, offer no answer.
Somewhere below, a door opens. Closes. Footsteps echo faintly, carried upward through the stone like a warning. Regulus’s spine straightens instantly, years of conditioning snapping him to attention.
He should go. He knew that. Lingering was foolish. Dangerous. The door behind him squeaks open.
“Oh, fuck. Merlin, shit. Cold one tonight, eh, Reg?”
And of course it's James Potter’s easy voice that comes from behind him, a little low and instantly shivery from the wind.
Of course.
The mask slides on as easily as breathing.
“You followed me?” Regulus sighs, breath clouding out before him in the chill of the night.
James Potter doesn’t even deny it. Chuckles, if you can believe it. Regulus shifts his weight slightly, looking pointedly behind him at the older boy.
He stands a few paces back, hands visible, wand tucked away, posture deliberately nonthreatening. There’s no smugness in his expression. No triumph. If anything, he looks…sheepish. Glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose just a little.
“Yeah,” he admits. “Sorry. I know that’s—” he winces slightly, searching for the word, “—creepy."
But James's grin is crooked, self-deprecating, so utterly sincere. There’s no edge to it. No challenge. Just a boy standing out in the cold, having chosen to care when it would have been much easier not to.
It unsettles Regulus far more than hostility ever could.
The wind curls between them, tugging at James's untidy hair, catching the hem of his robes. He looks absurdly out of place up here—too warm, too alive, too bright. Utterly annoying, really.
“You really shouldn’t be up here.” Regulus says flatly, quickly. Like he just wants this interaction to be over with already.
James considers that. Really considers it. His eyes flick briefly over Regulus’s face, not in assessment, not in judgment, just observation, as though he’s committing something to memory. His gaze lingers on his jaw for several seconds, on the faded ghost of the bruise he arrived to school with barely noticeable in this light.
The type of mark someone doesn't see unless they're truly looking.
“Probably not,” he admits, nodding in agreement. “But I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
Regulus lets out a quiet, humorless laugh. “You followed me halfway across the castle for that?”
The older boy concedes easily, a little shrug, absolutely no embarrassment whatsoever on his open face. “I’m usually pretty good at reading people.”
Regulus’s gaze sharpens. “You’re not, I assure you.”
James smiles again, not wounded, not offended. Patient. Kind. “Fair enough. Then let’s say I followed you because I was curious.”
Curiosity. Not suspicion. Not accusation.
It’s worse, almost.
Regulus turns back toward the parapet, fingers curling around the cold stone. He can feel James step closer, not invading his space, just… joining it. Standing beside him rather than behind him.
“You come up here a lot?"
Regulus doesn't answer.
“Mhmm,” James continues, as if he understands the silence for what it is. “You don’t have to explain. I just—” He exhales, slow and steady, his own breath puffing out now. “I get it, really, I do.”
Regulus scoffs, grey eyes on the impossibly open sky above them. Constellations looking down on the two boys. “I assure you, James, you really don’t.”
James tilts his head, gaze lifting to the stars. “Maybe not the same way, I guess. But I do get wanting to come up here. Hell, sometimes I feel like it's the only place in the castle I can ever...get a proper breath, y'know? Does that make sense?”
And Regulus really doesn't know what to say, then.
“Why…even bother?” he asks James eventually, quietly, voice almost swallowed completely by the cold.
James shrugs, but there’s a softness in his voice. “Because someone has to notice. Someone has to care, right?"
“That’s very…Gryffindor, of you.”
“Nah,” James chuckles, shaking his head. “Just…a fool who doesn’t like seeing other people miserable, I reckon. Call it a character flaw.”
“You’re not a fool.” Regulus mutters automatically, before he realizes he’s saying it.
James tilts his head, hazel eyes catching the moonlight a little, smiling shamelessly. “I really am,” he admits, “but one with only the most excellent of intentions." And that, was very self-aware for a fifteen year old James Potter.
Euphemia would've been so proud to hear those words from her son's own mouth.
There’s a pause, a delicate silence where the wind tussles James’s hair, and Regulus suddenly becomes acutely aware of the way the older boy looks—loose robes catching the moonlight, that crooked grin, that careless sort of ease that somehow makes the night feel like a warming charm had been cast.
For a moment, Regulus allows himself to be seen. Just a little.
"I just don’t know how to handle it all sometimes.” He admits the words quietly, the first time they've ever left his lips, his gaze dropping to the silvery black water of the lake far below. Massive, roiling bubbles rise to the surface offset from the middle, the Giant Squid no doubt.
James tilts his head, letting the words settle, a sad sort of smile at the edges his lips. “You...miss him?”
Regulus doesn’t answer immediately. He wants to shove it all down and hide it, that's what instinct tells him, but the wind, the stars, the impossibly alive warmth of James beside him—they make honesty almost painless. Almost.
“Every day,” he admits finally, voice tight. “Even when it makes me furious.”
“I get that. He’s your brother. You’re supposed to hate him for it…or maybe love him for it. Probably both," James shakes his head a little, exhaling slowly. "Sometimes, the people we care about most… they’re the ones who really make us hurt.”
Regulus shifts, finally letting a fraction of himself lean toward that warmth, allowing James’s presence to be enough. “And you...you're familiar with that feeling?" The idea is almost blasphemous.
James shrugs, but there’s a heavy tilt in his shoulders, a tenderness in the curve of his mouth. “Of course I am. But it’s a lot easier to bear when you know someone notices. That someone cares.”
Regulus looks at him, really looks, and for a heartbeat, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he could let himself believe it.
Let himself be seen without consequence.
Not a performance. Just him, and someone willing to sit in that truth with him.
And it’s terrifying. And, somehow, for a split second, he lets himself want it anyway. Desperately.
Regulus’s gaze flickers, tracing the curve of James’s shoulders under the moonlight, the way the wind teased loose strands of his hair into his face. There’s a warmth there, faint but insistent, that makes something inside Regulus stir—a thing he’s spent so long locking away.
“After he left I just...waited," Regulus admits, voice low, tremulous, just enough to betray him. "For him to come back, and make everything worse. Or for them to see that I'm...not what they wanted."
James’s eyes soften, glimmering in starlight, leaning a fraction closer—not close enough to cross any boundary, but close enough that Regulus can feel it. To show that he's really listening. “And that’s a lot to carry by yourself,” he says softly. “But Reg...he had to get out of that house. Really. They...they were going to kill him.”
The word strikes something inside Regulus. It’s strange, fragile, and unfamiliar to hear it from someone who isn’t family, someone who doesn’t have a reason to soften the truth or tiptoe around the edges.
"I know. I was there."
Both boys had seen versions of Sirius Black that night. One at Grimmauld Place, and one in Godric's Hollow.
Those words hang between them, fragile, weighty, intimate in a way that twists at something deep in Regulus’s chest. He swallows, heart stuttering a little.
Turns out that it’s quite unnerving, being seen like this.
"Sometimes I just feel like I'm—" Regulus trails off, words failing him for once.
"Drowning?" James offers, big eyes suddenly sad. As if he really does get it.
Regulus nods, once, throat suddenly tight.
"You’re not carrying it alone, Reg. Trust me."
It's the wind, he decides. The wind is what was taking the air from his chest like a dementor's kiss.
There’s something infuriatingly effortless about James Potter, the way he occupies space without demanding it, the way his grin manages to be both entirely annoying and oddly disarming. James didn't push and yet somehow manages to see more of Regulus in a few minutes than most people do in a lifetime. It’s endlessly irritating.
And yet, the tight cage around his chest felt just a little less suffocating, being in the boy's presence.
Maybe that's why Sirius too had flocked to James so easily, so quickly.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The first time Regulus Black had seen James Potter, he had been eleven years old and already very good at standing still.
It had been King’s Cross—crowded, chaotic, unbearably loud. Suffocating, really. Too many voices, too much movement, the air thick with steam and shouts. Regulus stood slightly behind his parents, posture perfect, spine straight, hands folded the way Walburga had drilled into him, his trunk on the ground beside his shined boots. He knew better than to fidget. He knew better than to stare.
Though he hadn’t learned how to wear himself like armor quite yet. He was still wary enough to flinch at sudden laughter, still careful with where he put his hands, his words, his eyes.
Still Sirius Black's little brother.
Sirius who, beside him, was an uncontrollable mass of energy. Restless, eyes darting to every passing student, every flashing trolley, searching for his new friends. His fellow Gryffindors, the ones he had spent the summer regaling Regulus with grand stories of, the ones he wanted to introduce to him.
And then there had been James Potter.
Twelve, maybe. All elbows and noise and uncontained energy. He was laughing, laughing so openly, without any reservation, dragging a trolley sideways and nearly colliding with a witch in Ministry robes. His dark hair stuck up in impossible directions, his glasses were a little crooked, and he looked utterly unbothered by the quick reprimand his mother gave him as she tugged on his collar to straighten him up.
And she had smiled, when she did it.
That was the part that had struck Regulus hardest.
Not the laughter, not the carelessness, but the way James had leaned into his mother then. As if affection was not something earned, but expected. As if love did not come with terms and conditions printed in invisible ink. The world seemed to bend slightly in James's orbit, to accommodate rather than crush him, and even at eleven, Regulus felt it.
In that moment, he really, really hated him for it.
And Sirius had taken off like that, moving so quickly away from the his parents, away from Regulus. Rushing over to James, all smiles, Mrs. Potter even patting Sirius on the head affectionately in greeting, James throwing his arms around Sirius unabashedly. Sirius’s eyes had followed James with the same easy, open warmth he used to reserve for Regulus when they had been younger, smaller.
And for a fleeting, gut-twisting moment, Regulus felt a pang of something raw and sickeningly complicated—he should have been jealous, really, he should have been truly resentful—but he wasn’t. Not really. Because the smile on Sirius’s face reminded him of the times when he had been enough. And he just liked to see him smile like that again.
James had caught Regulus looking—of course he had. James Potter noticed things. He’d grinned, wide and unapologetic, and lifted a hand in a careless wave, like they were already friends, like Regulus wasn’t a Black, like there wasn’t a gulf of expectation between them a mile wide.
Regulus hadn’t waved back.
And from that day forward, he would notice James Potter. Always.
Even when he tried not to. Even when he told himself he couldn’t. Even when it hurt.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
When at last Regulus straightens and mutters, “I should probably go,” there was no rush in his voice. “I'll… see you?”
James’s grin softens, warm, carrying the promise of return. “Yeah. You’ll see me. You'll find I'm quite hard to get rid of, actually.”
And Regulus lets out a small, reluctant laugh at these words, and James, of course, beams even brighter over that tiny victory.
“You make it sound like a threat,” Regulus says coolly, pushing away from the stone, retreating inwards towards the door to the tower.
“It might be,” James counters, hazel eyes twinkling. “Depends on how stubborn you are about avoiding me.”
“I’m very stubborn."
James shakes his head, still smiling, as if savoring every small victory he can coax from Regulus. “Try me."
Regulus hesitates, trying to hide the faint twitch of amusement curling at the edge of his mouth. "Careful, James. Your ego is showing."
"Well, it is my best feature."
And Regulus could argue with that, really, because he already had a list.
By dinner the following evening, Regulus had composed himself once more.
It was always easier in public. A familiar script, one where Regulus knows his lines. Where he doesn't need to fumble around with honesty.
There was a part of him that felt like the night before was a dream; half-convinced he'd invented it, imagined the whole thing.
Strolling into the Great Hall, he finds Evan Rosier is already there, sprawled sideways on the bench like he owns the place, fingers idly spinning around a goblet. He looks bored in the way only someone very intelligent and very under-stimulated can manage.
“You’re late,” Evan drawls without looking up at him. “Tragic. I was beginning to think you’d been murdered in a stairwell.”
Regulus sets his bag down neatly, a practiced ease. “Disappointed?”
“Deeply,” Evan says, glancing over, dark eyes sharp with mirth. “Dinner would’ve been far more interesting.” Regulus found most of their classmates to be insufferable, but Evan least of all, most days. He really didn't mind the boy, especially after sharing a dorm with him all these years. Maybe even enjoyed his company, once in a blue moon.
"So sorry to disappoint, Rosier."
Across from them, Barty Crouch Jr., fellow dormmate, snorts into his pumpkin juice.
Platters had appeared with a quick clatter just as Regulus had arrived, steam curling into the air—roast beef, potatoes, buttered carrots. Regulus reaches for the serving spoon automatically, muscle memory taking over. Cutlery chimed, plates filled themselves, laughter rose and fell in waves. The noise pressed in from every angle, loud and unavoidable and familiar in the way suffocation often was.
Evan watches him for a moment longer than necessary.
“You look tired,” he says casually. Too casually.
Regulus’s hand stills for half a second. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“Mm,” Evan hums. “Must be going around, that sleeping bug.”
Regulus eats. Chews. Nods in the right places. He laughs when Evan makes a pointed remark about a Ravenclaw second-year he hexed earlier that day. He listens as Barty launches into a breathless rant about some recent Ministry overreach, his words tumbling over one another with manic energy, constantly raving about his father, who's shadow loomed large over him.
It all fits. It always has.
And yet—
His gaze flicks, traitorous and unbidden, toward the Gryffindor table.
Too loud. Too...red and gold. James Potter sat only halfway down to the bench, animated as ever, gesturing with a fork as he spoke, laughter bright and unchecked. Sirius was beside him—too close, too easy, shoulder brushing his as he pulled him back down, as if that sort of familiarity were effortless, because for them, it was. Peter was laughing so hard his face had turned a deep shade of red. There was a missing place in their group this evening, Remus nowhere to be found. That happened every now and then, the boys taking a spare plate from the hall with them after the meal.
“Try not to stare.” Evan prods, lifting his goblet to his lips and pulling deeply. Regulus thought he caught a whiff of something that was certainly not pumpkin juice.
“I wasn’t.” Regulus says coolly, stabbing into a carrot, perhaps a little more vicious than required.
“Sure,” Evan replies, watching the fork and smirking. “And I’m Head Boy.”
Evan watches his friend for a moment longer, then leans back, expression shifting into something more serious. “You disappeared last night.”
A beat passes. Regulus stiffens. “I did not.”
“You did too,” Evan drawls lightly. “After curfew. Slipped off like a ghost. Again, I might add.”
Barty’s gaze snaps to him, suddenly sharp with interest. “Oh? Where’d you run off to there Reg?”
Regulus lifts his goblet, buying time. “Out.”
Evan laughs brightly. “Inspiring, Black. Truly.”
“I needed air.” Regulus adds, evenly.
That, at least, was true.
“Air,” Evan echoes. “Right. Is that what we’re calling it now?”
Barty studies him with an unsettling intensity, as if rearranging some little chess pieces in his mind. “Careful,” he muses, voice dropping slightly. “People notice things like that. Especially now.”
Regulus meets his eyes, gaze narrowing, a little exasperated. “Notice what exactly, Crouch?”
Barty smiles at him, all teeth and clawing ambition. “Weakness, obviously. Cracks.”
He holds the boy's gaze sharply, not backing down, not to Barty Crouch Jr of all people.
He's stood toe to toe with Walburga Black. This was nothing to Regulus, these petty children's games.
"Then it's fortunate I don't have any of those, isn't it, Bartemius?" Regulus says evenly, coolly, lifting his own goblet to his lips. Like his pulse hadn't just sped up beneath his skin, the lie tight in his throat.
Evan's smile widens at those words, holding his drink up, a toast. "Spoken like a true Black."
And Regulus can't help himself, really, when his eyes dart back over briefly to that damn Gryffindor table.
But James Potter isn't there anymore.
And the hall suddenly feels much, much colder for it.