James and Lily sat up talking half the night - comparing thoughts about everything that had happened in such a short amount of time and discussing the pros and cons of alerting Sirius to what they had found out about Regulus.
"Do you reckon You-Know-Who knew that it wasn't really Regulus that he dropped off at the Ministry?" Lily asked. She was laying on the bed, her back against James's chest, using his knees as arm rests as he wrapped his arms around her torso, his chin on top of her head as they talked.
James thought about the question for a moment. "I don't," he answered after a moment. "Because he's too smart for that. He would've known that Maryrose was a metamorphmangus and certainly he would've known that they change back to their natural state when they've died. If he was trying to trick us into thinking it was Regulus, he would've transfigured the body himself and it wouldn't have changed back. I think he really thought it was Regulus."
Lily said, "That makes sense. Plus, if he'd been just waiting, holding onto Maryrose all this time, her body would've... decomposed some by now. It's been months."
"Exactly. So however she ended up where she was, looking like Regulus Black, it was on purpose and it was probably from another time. Probably by Mopsus."
Lily nodded, thinking of the graveyard and of the boy she had seen there... Harry. Her heart pounded a bit harder at the memory of his face - so much like his father's... She tilted her head up toward James so she was staring at his chin. Here was a bit of a five o'clock shadow under his chin and on his jaw bone. Not a lot, but just enough.
"So if Voldemort thinks Regulus is dead..."
"Don't say the name, James, it's creepy now, knowing what it's done to Regulus." Lily shuddered. "I can't stand to hear it anymore. Please."
"Alright. So if You Know Who, then, thinks that Regulus is dead, then that means Regulus isn't with him or any of his followers. He must've gotten away," James said.
"Then why is he being tortured? I'm sure I felt --" Lily sighed, frowning as she tried to work it out in her mind. "I don't understand what else would give him so much pain. I certainly hope it doesn't hurt that much every time You Know Who uses the dark mark to call his followers. That would be awful."
"I mean, I'm sure it isn't a picnic."
"This was horrendous, James..." She held her arm out and looked at it. There weren't any marks or anything, but she could still trace precisely where the pain had shot across her arm. She twisted her elbow to look over the full path of where it had burned. "It felt like someone took a poker out of the floo and dragged it clear 'round my arm."
James shivered and his had reached out and took a gently hold on her arm, sliding his fingers down her forearm, over the back of her hand, and lacing his fingers through hers. "I hate that it hurt you."
"I hate that it hurt him."
"I hate that, too," James murmured, and he bowed his head so he was kissing her shoulder, his eyes on the part of her arm that she'd described the burning in.
They sat in silence like that for a few minutes. Rodger jumped up onto the bed and walked across the blankets, curling up in the gap between their legs and setting himself to purring lowly. James closed his eyes, just being in the moment, feeling her in his arms and the cat on their legs and the smell of the fireplace, the cold of the night outside all blue while the bedroom was warm orange-red.
"Why do you think Regulus hasn't come to tell us he's alright himself?" Lily asked.
"Dunno."
"I mean, if he isn't with You Know Who, he could come and solve it all in minutes... Why hasn't he?"
"There must be some reason he's not coming," James mused. "Some reason that he doesn't want us to know, maybe?"
Lily hated thinking what she was thinking, and so she held it in for a moment, trying to logic out any alternate option she could before she spoke it out. But finally, she had to say the words. "James, if he hasn't come... if he doesn't want us to know... I mean... shouldn't we - maybe - honor that?"
James had been thinking the same thing. That was part of why they'd obliviated the memory of Maryrose's body from Frank's mind before he left, wasn't it? "I hate the idea of keeping this from Sirius."
"I know. I - I don't know if I can."
"Me, either."
They were silent.
"But I also hate to think what happens if Regulus's secret falls through. I mean, Sirius isn't exactly... quiet. If he doesn't react to Regulus's death... it would be sort of obvious something was going on."
James nodded. "Exactly."
"And what if Regulus's secret is... imperative."
"His cover's blown and You Know Who figures out what's on and Regulus is right back in danger again..." James shook his head.
"Do you think he's safe, wherever he is?" Lily asked quietly.
"I hope so."
"Do you think he's warm?" she pictured him laying in a snow bank somewhere, half dead, with no blankets and just the pair of pyjamas the lads had said he'd been wearing and nothing else. Not to mention, wandless. "Oh gods, James, I wish he would just put down his walls and come back to us." She started crying.
"Evans. Hey." James kissed the side of her face, rocking her slowly as his arms came up 'round her tight. "Hey, it's alright, baby," he whispered, voice husky and low in her ear, comforting her. "It's alright... shhh..."
"James, I - I've never felt like this before, I just - I want him to be safe and okay and I want so much for him to come home."
"I know, Evans."
"I feel like a mum."
James smiled and kissed her shoulder again. "You sound the part." He smiled against her skin and murmured, "You'll make a good one, one day."
"And you'll make a good father, too," Lily answered.
"One day, when the war is over, we'll give it a go, huh Evans?"
Lily was quiet. Once again, the image of the boy in the cemetery came into her mind and the ferocious look on He Who Must Not Be Named's face as he glared at the boy... "We'll know when we're ready, I reckon," she murmured, thinking that if they waited for the war to end they would never be parents.
James stared at the fire in the hearth. "So we're not telling Sirius?"
Lily shivered. Even as they were speaking, she could feel the weight of Sirius's heart mingling with her own in her chest... all heavy with shadows and pain, all broken and feeling guilty and empty...
But what if Regulus's life depended on the secret being kept?
"It'll be so hard, but I think... at least until we hear from Regulus..."
"Until we hear from Regulus," James murmured.
Lily nodded.
It felt very heavy, that choice, and they were quiet for a good long while, each thinking about what not telling Sirius would entail for their own relationship with Sirius, and working out the way that they would respond to the things Sirius was sure to say and do in the coming weeks as he worked through the pain and the grief.
Hopefully, James thought, Regulus would decide to show up sooner rather than later.
After several long minutes, he asked, "Evans?"
"James?" Lily asked.
"You were friends with Maryrose, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Did she ever mention... about... I dunno, about changing herself?"
Lily ran her fingers over James's knee. "She did once. Not in terrible detail. Only that she'd been born with... you know, boy parts... and her Da was really excited to have a boy after having Pandy and all... Her name was Martin."
James listened quietly.
"But she wasn't comfortable and she made her choice for herself."
James asked, "Is that why it seemed she - she appeared from no where?"
"How do you mean?"
"I swear I'd never seen her before. And with that teal hair, you'd think you'd see her everywhere about the castle. She stood out always - once I knew her, she was everywhere... I never understood how I didn't see her before."
"Oh. Yeah. That's because she'd been Martin one year and the next..."
James nodded. He felt like a big mystery had been solved for him. And he felt guilty that he hadn't heard the story from Maryrose. He thought of all the times she'd ever told him that she wanted to talk to him about things and how he'd been such an awful boyfriend to her. He was thankful that Regulus Black had been better. She deserved the best, and he - James - had ever only given her half at most. But Regulus had given her his all.
"James," Lily whispered.
"Hmm?"
"I love you," she said.
"I love you too, Evans."
Looking in the mirror again, Regulus couldn't even recognize his own reflection anymore. He'd exaggerated the new bend to his nose and added some freckles across his face. His shorn head already looked so different than usual, and add to it that he'd found some old glasses that had belonged to his father and he'd magicked the lenses so that he could see through them and so that when people looked at his face through the horn-rimmed things they saw his irises as a deep green rather than the signature grey eyes the Black boys were known for. He never did fix that tooth.
He needed a name.
What was a cool name that Sirius would approve of? he thought. Struck by inspiration, he looked into his own eyes. "Freddie Jenkins." He held out his hand to an imaginary third person, but stared into his own eyes in the mirror. "Hullo, I'm Freddie," he said, "Freddie Jenkins."
He sounded too much like himself.
He tried at lowering his voice, and then at speeding it up, going higher than before, but it seemed whatever he did, he sounded the same. He cleared his throat, then tried again in an accent. Something between the British drawl and French. It was choppy at best, but it was different. Perhaps with a bit more luck it could be passable, he hoped.
He went to bed that night in his own bed, blankets tucked up to his chin, staring at the ceiling, wondering if Sirius was alright, hoping that Remus Lupin and the other lads were comforting him, taking care of him. He hoped Sirius wasn't mad at him, and that if the time ever came that Regulus got to tell his brother that he wasn't dead after all, that Sirius would forgive him for whatever time would pass between then and now.
In the flat in East London, Remus held Sirius in their bed, Sirius curled toward Remus, his face buried in Remus's chest as Remus's arms encircled his husband's body, stroking his back gently.
"If I could carry a tune for the life of me, I'd sing to you," Remus whispered.
"Do it anyway," Sirius pleaded.
Remus was quiet a moment, partly thinking of a song he knew well enough to give it a go with and partly trying to work up the nerve to do it, and then he sang very quietly, "I hope life will treat you kind, and I hope that you have all that you've ever dreamed of... Oh, I do wish you joy.. and I wish you happiness... and above all this I wish you love... I love you... I....I will always... always love you... oh I ... will always... love you."
"Dolly Parton's been done proud," Sirius whispered into Remus's chest.