Crimson Rivers

Chapter 39

The first time Regulus invites James in for tea is months after learning his parents are dead. James can't really blame him for that, honestly, because—well, his parents are dead.

It was a house fire, apparently, but James—along with Sirius and Regulus—knew that Riddle was behind it somehow. The mayor did have it assessed, but all that was said about it was a faulty wire that led to a tragic accident. No one wondered why they didn't try to escape, and didn't think to ask themselves if maybe Walburga and Orion couldn't. Effie said it happened in the middle of the night, while her and Monty were asleep, so by the time they got up to the harsh smell of smoke from down the street, it was already too late.

Regulus was, predictably and understandably, not okay after the fact. Sirius wasn't either, though his complex emotions seem steeped in his own understanding of morality, because he confessed to James once, late at night, that the fact that his parents were dead comforted him, and he thought it made him a bad person. He got randomly upset as well, though. About two weeks after learning his parents died, Sirius had a major breakdown thinking that maybe, just maybe, there were happy memories of his childhood with his parents, but he just forgot them. On that day, the only person who could help Sirius was Regulus—who also wasn't doing so well at the time—and so it was Regulus who had to explain that no, they didn't have many happy memories with their parents as children, and yes, their parents were shitty people, but they were still dead, and it still hurt anyway.

There was no funeral equivalent or anything of the like. James is pretty sure that Sirius and Regulus took a night to get absolutely fucking plastered, because Sirius didn't come home one night, and he could hear yelling from across the street. The next day—not morning, but afternoon—Sirius came stumbling in, hungover and sporting busted knuckles, grumbling about lunatics for little brothers.

Nonetheless, whatever issues they had seemed to pass, because Sirius continued to go visit Regulus as often as he had been. The only other common visitor was still, infuriatingly enough, Barty Crouch Jr, who went in and out of Regulus' house like he fucking lived there. James, of course, was still just bringing the daily flower, and he wasn't even heartbroken the first time he stepped up and saw the flower from the previous day right where he'd left it. Well, he had been heartbroken, but not out of a sense of rejection. He remembered how Regulus said that the flower got him out of bed when doing so was too hard, and he was pretty sure that meant that Regulus just—hadn't gotten out of bed the previous day. At all. Not even for the flower.

So, James put out a little flower pot for him on his stoop, just so the flower wouldn't die, letting it wait there for whenever Regulus was ready to get it. Regulus eventually did. James showed up one day to see that the flower was gone, and so he replaced it again, and the cycle continued. There were some days that Regulus didn't take the flower, and there were some days where James barely got to make it across the damn street before Regulus' hand was darting out his door to grab the flower like it was all he wanted out of life.

It took two months, nearly three, for that door to open when James stepped up onto the stoop. He didn't expect it, not that day, and probably not ever. Some part of James felt—guilt, felt like it was at least partially his fault, because maybe he could have done more, tried harder, put on a better performance, and maybe Walburga and Orion would have lived. He knew, rationally, that he wasn't to blame—Riddle was—but that didn't stop the feelings from being there.

His shame for it led him to be fully convinced that Regulus would never, ever speak to him again. The curtains on his window were always shut.