Chapter Text
In a house full of people, James had never felt more alone.
He'd thought that maybe it would be like the old days. Like trying to keep his laughter down in the dorm so that he wouldn't get detention for the third time in a week. Like racing Marlene on the school oval like they'd do when they were kids. Like late nights staying up beside the fireplace with Lily's arm around him.
It wasn't like that at all.
There was no laughter, no running on vibrant green grass, no warmth at midnight on a soft carpet. There was only hiding away behind closed doors, stilted smiles and that awful cold feeling everywhere you went. That feeling he knew all too well.
Thinking about it, James had never really been alone. When he was born, he'd been surrounded by his parents' tearful faces and the adoring expressions of the doctors. Then there'd been Sirius on the train, the rowdy boy he'd looked at and immediately known that he was with him for life. Peter, reserved and soft-spoken but with an undoubtably good heart. Remus, who always seemed to have a war raging in his mind, but understood peace more than anybody else did. From then on, he'd been enveloped in love.
And he still was. He knew that, of course he did. But in every conversation, every good moment, there was that note of wariness that would never truly go away. Over and over again, James reminded himself that he hadn't done anything wrong. He wasn't the reason Sirius didn't make as many jokes as he usually did. It wasn't because of him that Remus spent most of his time in bed, or that Peter flinched whenever James said something to him. No, it wasn't his fault that Marlene was more distant with him than she had been before, except it was. It wasn't his fault that Lily didn't talk to him as much as she used to, but it was.
He hadn't caused this. But that didn't mean that he wasn't to blame.
But he was James, and James could fix this. At least, most of it.
He started with Sirius.
"Sirius."
"James."
"What is it?" James wasn't sure why he hadn't asked before, and he wasn't sure if it was too late to ask now.
"What's what?"
"You know what. It's me, you can tell me what's wrong."
Sirius stared at the covered-up window. It was hard to tell what time it was nowadays, because it was dark more than it was light. "It's not fair, you know?"
"Alice and Frank?"
"I mean, I know we didn't really know them, they weren't in our year. But they were nice to us. They noticed us. And we never had to ask for it."
James understood that, to a certain level. He was an only child, so he'd never had anybody like that to look up to, and neither had Sirius. But James had had his parents, always his parents, steady and safe. Sirius hadn't had that, would never have that, and Alice and Frank were the closest thing. And now they were gone.
"I'm sorry," said James, because he was.
"Me too," said Sirius.
He fixed things, if you could even call it that. He played cards with Peter and helped Remus reposition the barricades. He messed with an old guitar that he found in the guest room with Marlene. He avoided Lily, or maybe Lily was avoiding him.
Since the breakup, he hadn’t known what to say to her. She’d seen him vulnerable, seen him weak, and he hated that.
James had wanted to stay with her, wanted it more than anything. Lily was smart and pretty and kind and she made him happy, but she wasn’t what he wanted.
Nobody was what he wanted. All James wanted was him, and he hated himself for that.
Regulus Black was everywhere. James could hear the echo of his laughter in every empty room, swore that he could see his unblinking gaze in every crowded place. He was a shadow, and James woke up from every dream remembering what he'd lost.
"James?"
"What do you want from me, James?"
"I want you."
"...James?"
"Promise you won't leave."
"I promise, Reg. I'm not going anywhere."
"James?"
"It was real to me. I want you to know that."
"I-wait-"
"I gave you so many chances, Regulus. I think I get why you're still in that house now. You're just as bad as them."
"James!"
"What?"
"Keep your voice down," Marlene whispered. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing, I-"
"Later, there's no time. There's a Death Eater right outside."
The others were gathered in the hallway, uncharacteristically silent. James peered over Mary's shoulder; it was still sunny, the houses across from Peter's sitting peacefully in their baths of daylight. It would have looked like a perfectly ordinary day, if not for the zombie lurking outside. It hadn't appeared to notice them yet, but James was positive that they had been left alone for too long.
"You got a plan, Evans?" Sirius said teasingly, raising an expectant brow.
Lily put a finger to her lips. "Ignore it until it goes away is my solution to most things. Including you, Black."
"Oi, watch it-" Sirius began, deeply offended, but Remus nudged him and he went quiet. James craned his head to see why, and met lifeless eyes. A shiver trailed down his spine, revulsion curling in his gut.
All of them shrank back against the wall, away from the window. James could feel Peter shaking beside him as it advanced towards the glass.
"We need to get away from the window," Lily said under her breath. "It can't see us, I don't think, but it can sense us."
"How do you know that?" Sirius asked. "It might not know we're in here, it's too risky to move."
"It can clearly see us," Marlene told him.
"You don't know that," Sirius argued.
"It's literally looking right at us."
"It's dead, it can't bloody see us!"
"You're both going to end up dead if you don't shut the fuck up," Remus hissed, then winced at his own words. "I'm sorry, but Lily's right. We should g-"
Blood painted the window as the Death Eater's skull connected with the glass, over and over again. The zombie paid no attention to the way the force of the action cracked open its quickly deteriorating skin, head swinging back and forth like a broken mechanical toy.
Ignoring the chill of his own fear, James wildly looked around for something to stop the glass from shattering. There was already a couch against the window, but it hadn't done anything to prevent the large crack forming in the material.
His friends were still arguing in the background. "I told you we should have moved," grumbled Lily.
"You think moving was going to stop this from happening?" Mary said.
"Yes, I do think that, but because of Sirius-"
"Oh, you're blaming me now, are you?" Sirius interrupted.
"I didn't say that! I'm just saying that if you hadn't argued with me about it, we'd be fine."
"Fine," Sirius repeated blankly.
"Yes, fine!"
"Nothing about this is fine," Marlene cut in. "We've been cooped up in here for too long, Lils. It was a bad idea to come here; the more crowded the places is, the more zombies."
"What else would we have done?" Lily said. "It would've been way too dangerous back with Kingsley, we didn't know how long ago the...the attack was."
"It's my house," Peter said miserably. "If-if we'd gone somewhere farther away, less people..."
"It's not your fault, Pete," Remus said tiredly.
James, finding nothing among the spotless carpet, gave up the search. "It's no one's fault. Look, if you guys run, maybe I can buy us some time-"
"No. Absolutely not. Don't you dare, James," Lily said immediately. "I know what you're thinking, but now's not the time to play hero. We need each other."
You don't need me, James wanted to say. If he'd been smarter about this, they wouldn't be in any danger now. He wasn't trying to play hero. He was just trying, and failing, and it was all he ever did.
"Plan B: run and hide?" Sirius suggested.
"There's no point, Lily just said they can sense us," Marlene said.
"I don't know that for sure," Lily mumbled.
"You're usually right, though." James input.
"This might come as a shock, but I don't know everything."
"I mean, it's eight against one. We can attack it all at once," said Sirius.
Remus crossed his arms. "And if one of us gets bitten in the process?"
"Well..."
"If you all weren't standing around squabbling like five-year-olds, you might've noticed that we're all about to be killed," Dorcas said coolly, from where she was standing with her back against the wall.
They all turned to look at her, and then at the zombie again. The Death Eater reared back, then its face met with the window one last time and James was showered in a spray of glass shards.
***
Regulus was still alive.
That - added to the fact that he had an impressively large zombie bite mark on his back - was concerning. It had been three days since the incident, and he was still infuriatingly human. He'd checked the mark excessively, watching the skin around it bruise all shades of purple, watching the veins bulge into a coal-black cobweb. Maybe it was killing him from the inside, burrowing deep into his core, and he wouldn't notice until it was too late. Until it had claimed his soul and his mind for its own, until he forgot his name and everything else that made him.
Or maybe he somehow couldn't be infected, which was decidedly worse. Carrying the weight of the world, walking on a barren earth with too many graves to dig. Regulus didn't like other people very much, but even he had to admit that it was a lonely fate.
More likely, he'd be dead before he got to find out, and time was ticking. Evan had left several hours ago, scrawled a message into the wall that told Regulus that he'd be back by noon. It was, in fact, noon, but Evan wasn't one for being punctual which was for once a good thing, because Regulus wasn't exactly sure how to tell him and Barty that he'd been bitten.
Yeah, so would you be mad if I turned into a zombie right now?
You know those flesh eating zombies that are walking around outside? I might be one of them. Just warning you.
Telling them probably wasn't a good idea. Neither was the other option, so Regulus was very much out of luck.
The blood had already seeped through his coat; he went rummaging through Barty's things yet again, and withdrew a roll of bandages. A large amount of it was already unravelled, presumably from the last time it had been used, and the end of it had been torn off in a rushed fashion. It was very on-brand for Barty, who had been in the hospital wing more than he had been in class back at Hogwarts.
Regulus measured out strips of gauze in a methodical manner. It had been a long time since he'd last had to do this, but he'd done it so often it was like muscle memory. The difference was that it had never been for himself.
"Mother?" his voice echoed throughout the empty house. There was no response. "Dad? I know I'm late, I had to..."
He cut himself off, staring in horror at his brother slumped up on the wall beside the fireplace. Regulus couldn't see the extent of the damage, but he wasn't blind; he could see the gashes lining the skin behind the fabric of clothing, the way Sirius winced when he moved - his torso must have been bruised from hands holding him down onto the carpet.
"Gone to see James?" Sirius asked, smirking, but it came out as more of a grimace.
"It doesn't matter," Regulus snapped, keeping his voice low. He set his violin down on the floor and began to go through the drawers. "What happened? Did you-"
"I didn't cover for you, no. They didn't even notice you were gone, it was me they were worried about."
Regulus shook his head, dabbing at Sirius' wounds. "Quit moving, will you? What'd you do?"
"I, uh," Sirius looked guilty. "You know how the theatre at Diagon Alley does a play every spring? It was open tryouts, so I sent in an audition."
"You're taking the piss, aren't you? You didn't. You would have known they wouldn't allow it-"
"Fuck-" Sirius breathed a sigh of relief as Regulus stopped dabbing. "I'm not. I knew and I did it, okay? I got the main role, Reggie. I got the part."
"So what?" Regulus hated the hopeful look in his brother's eyes. "The play - Sirius, you can't do it. They won't be so lenient a second time round."
He wrinkled his nose as he opened the can of ointment. Sirius did the same. "Oh, please don't, that smells awful."
"I'm serious."
"No, I'm-"
"Shut up. Just email them, tell them you're busy that week, it's early enough to find somebody new. It's impossible, Sirius, just step out before it's too late."
"But I want to do this," said Sirius, his voice insistent even through the pain. "This is-this is what I want to do, Reggie, this is my thing. I don't care if our parents don't like it. My whole life...I've been waiting for something like this. An opportunity. Acting's my dream."
"A dream, and that's all it should be," Regulus wrapped dressing around the cuts, more tightly than was needed. "This is ridiculous. I don't know why I'm still talking to you."
"Look," Sirius struggled to sit up properly, "it's either be miserable for the rest of my life, working at Father's side, or have the best fucking night of my life. I won't say a thing about it to them until then. I can make it big, Reggie, you'll see."
"What play?" Regulus said begrudgingly.
Sirius launched forward and wrapped his arm around Regulus, who made a face but didn't recoil. "Oh, Reggie, I'll love you forever and ever. I'll do anything you ask from now on. You're my favourite person-"
"Are you going to answer my question or not?"
"'A Midsummer Night's Dream'," he pulled away and grabbed Regulus by the face. "I'll be the greatest movie star that the world has ever seen. I'll get a hold of the money and I'll get the hell out of here. I'll get a house, then I'll come back and take you with me."
"What?" Regulus imagined living with Sirius, far away from Walburga and Orion and the cold silent halls of 12 Grimmauld Place. Far away from this house, but right at home.
"I promise. I'll come back for you, Reggie. We're getting out of here, I swear it," Sirius grabbed Regulus' pinky and linked it with his own, and for once Regulus didn't roll his eyes. "It'll be a massive place, a mansion, way more cosier than it is here, with all kinds of flowers in the front. There'll be a music space for you and a stage for me. Photographs on the walls, not like the portraits here though - maybe we can get Lily to send us shit from her camera. And guest rooms for James and Remus and Pete, of course. And Barty and Evan and Pandora, but their rooms have to be far, far away from me."
"What else?" Regulus asked in a whisper, like the idea of it would float away from him if he scared it away.
"A great big library with shelves and shelves of books, and a pool in the backyard so we can go swimming at midnight. And a nice roof that you can climb onto and look at the stars, because I know you'd like that," Sirius smiled, a faraway look in his eyes. "We'll make it our home, Reggie. It'll be all ours, and they won't ever get to touch it."
"Ours," said Regulus, and then, "okay."
"Okay? You'll run away with me, won't you?"
"Okay. You'll come back for me?"
"Yeah Reggie, I'll come back for you. I'll always come back for you."
The bite was burning now, not quite like a fire, more like claws inside him, breaking apart the diseased bone, cracking him into pieces. The bandages in his hand were taunting him, showing him visions of a warm home and a kept promise and a bright boy by his side.
Regulus lowered himself to the ground. He tried to catch his breath, but it didn't help that it felt like there were knives probing into his back, into his head, into the pupils in his eyes, tweezers plucking his heart out of his chest.
He heard the clicks of the door being bolted. The sound Evan and Barty's voices swam toward him, but the syllables were all mixed together and Regulus couldn't tell what they were saying. He could've sworn he heard a girl's voice, melodious and familiar, or maybe he was imagining it.
He coughed and blood splattered onto the wooden floor in tiny spots; the motion itself made his body scream in agony, but he felt too fragile to react. The voices stopped and his ears began to ring.
Fuck. Was it happening now? His heart rate sped up dramatically; maybe it was fear, maybe it was the sickness. No, no, no, he had to get out. He lifted his head from the floor, but a hand pushed him back down. He blinked, blearily, and his vision cleared just enough for him to see...Pandora? She seemed distressed, but most likely than not it was due to the fact that there was blood on her dress. A lot of it.
"Pandora?" he said, his words not sounding like his own.
"In the flesh. Try to turn over, will you? You're making this awfully difficult."
"Shove over," Regulus was pretty sure this was Evan talking now, peeling back the layers of his failed bandaging. Evan inhaled sharply, hands stilling. "I knew it. I fucking knew it."
"No, you didn't," scoffed Barty. "You sneaky little bitch, Regulus."
"It's impressive, really," Pandora added. "If he turns on us, maybe we can pop him on a leash and keep him as a pet."
"Are you fucking insane?"
"I'm offended that you ever doubted that," she told Evan, hand on her heart in false hurt.
"Okay, wait. What do mean by if?" asked Barty.
"I think you know exactly what I mean. I haven't seen anybody with symptoms like this. It's been at least a day, judging by the state of the bite, don't you think?"
Barty snickered, shaking his head at Regulus. "You're not saying..."
"Hello?" Evan waved a hand in front of Barty's face. "He's literally dying? Fuck off with your bullshit theories."
"Shame," said Pandora. "He'll figure it out."
The faces around Regulus spun none too gently from the effort of focusing on the voices. Did nobody else feel the stifling heat of the fire rising up the walls of the cabin? Was he the only one suffocated by the smoke?
Evan laughed, but it wasn't happy. "You're a real piece of shit, I hope you know that. Tell us what to do, Regulus. Tell us how to fix this."
You can't, Regulus tried to say, but the words wedged in his throat.
"We wait it out, Ev," Barty said, with dramatic flair. "If he lives, he lives. If he dies, he dies."
"And if we go down with him?" said Evan.
Barty shrugged. "Then so be it. Honestly, it's a miracle he's lasted this long already."
Regulus curled his fingers into his palm, except for the middle one. The fire was growing closer, the smoke billowing into his mouth and up his nostrils.
Barty rolled his eyes. "Okay, so he hasn't lost his mind yet."
"Well, I'm going to if we stand around here for any longer. You know, this dress cost me a fortune and it can still be saved if I'm quick about it," Pandora snapped.
"You've already lost your mind anyway, Panda," Barty retorted. "Besides, that dress is ugly. You look like a maid."
"Insult my dress again and I'll bury you in it," Pandora threatened.
"Point proven. Though the red did add a splash of colour to it," Barty admitted. "I-Regulus?"
His voice faded back out as the fire descended towards Regulus. Finally, the last puff of smoke drifted into his lungs, the flames licking up the length of his body. The last thing he saw was his gaunt appearance, reflecting back at him in a pool of his own blood.
***
Someone screamed. Someone laughed. Someone grabbed Mary's arm.
She whirled around, and fell into the deep emerald pools of Lily's eyes. She could drown in those eyes, and Lily would be there to pull her back to the surface, every time.
"Let's get the fuck out of here," Mary said in a relief.
"Agreed."
Mary ripped herself away from Lily's eyes and let her friend tug her away, up the stairs, following the others into James' room. Marlene shut the door with a bang and started piling things against it. "Christ, James, your room is a mess. How do you live like this?"
"I really don't think that's our biggest problem right now," said Remus, glacing warily towards the door where a corpse might be waiting on the other side.
"We should've gone to Pete's room," Lily said with a frown. "It has windows, so we could've escaped from there."
"What, and fall to our deaths?" Marlene said. "It doesn't matter. We're here now."
"I don't know about you, but I'd rather fall to my death than face whatever's out there," Mary said, trying not to look at the door, which only had a chair and a few miscellaneous items to support it. She was distracted by a sharp pinch in her thigh, where a fragment of glass had embedded itself there.
"You're all acting like we're already doomed," said James, who had a shallow cut on his forehead and his lip - presumably by the glass as well.
"That's because we are," replied Marlene.
"No, we aren't. Sirius, where's that knife?"
"Huh?"
"The knife. The one you carry around in your jacket."
Lily exchanged a concerned look with Mary. "Sorry, why is Sirius carrying around a knife?"
"Who cares? You might've mentioned that sooner, James," Marlene said. "Where is it, then, Sirius?"
"I gave it to Remus," Sirius said.
All eyes turned to Remus, who looked away guiltily. "I put it in my bag. And then I left my bag in my room."
There was a collective sigh. James perked up again. "The only way to kill them is to get them in the head, right? So we just need something really sharp."
"Which we'll never be able to find in this mess," Marlene said accusingly.
"Won't we?" Mary held up the bloodied shard of glass to them. She tried not to grimace at the pain in her leg, which now felt sticky with blood.
James took it. "That's perfect."
"Now what?" said Marlene. "We just go out there, and...stab?"
"We can't all go," Lily said. "Someone's bound to get bitten."
James' response was instant. "I'll go."
"No, I should go. I can fight," said Sirius.
"But you and Remus already went to the store. I haven't done anything."
"I can go," Marlene said. "I already took down a Death Eater before. I can do it again."
"You don't know that," Lily said, despondently.
"Are you doubting my zombie-killing abilities?"
"This is ridiculous," Lily told them all. "It was my idea, so I'll go. I'm not going to send anyone out to die."
She reached forward to grab the weapon from James, but his hands were empty. Because Mary had already rapidly wrenched it out of his grip and shoved the chair away, slamming the door before anyone could stop her.
The truth was, Mary had been itching to get out ever since they'd entered. Caged in that room with a monster waiting outside, it was all too familiar. Only this time, she felt far less fear than she usually did. Only this time, she knew all the right ways to play its game.
She knew she had to work quick, and efficiently. The Death Eater hadn't quite gotten to the room yet, so Mary counted herself lucky. She decided that the best course of action for her plan would be to wait in the kitchen, so she quietly made her way there, making sure to keep her steps silent. Heel, toe. Heel, toe.
Once she got there, she hastily but noiselessly opened every cupboard that was visible and started to search for what she needed. It was easy to retrieve the first two things; they were sitting right there in the top drawer, so she set them on the table and began to hunt for the third.
Mary only had a vague idea of what she needed, as she shuffled through pots and pans and cups and plates as swiftly and as carefully as possible. Her hands shook when she found what she had been looking for.
A car roared down the driveway. He was home - though, thanks to him, the warmth that Mary and her mother had lived in had evaporated. It felt less like a home, and more like a dungeon.
Mary froze where she was standing at the sink, the half-emptied bottle still in her hand as she watched amber liquid swirl down the drain. No, no, no. She considered dropping it and running - perhaps she had time to hide the bottle somewhere? - but she knew it was of no use, because he always found her, especially when she didn't want to be found.
The front door opened. Mary hurriedly hid the bottle behind her back and fixed a cheery smile onto her face. She was a bit self-conscious of her smile now, for she'd only lost her front teeth the week before. The Tooth Fairy must have forgotten her coin this year; she'd checked her pillow every night, and she'd seen nothing but tear-stained sheets.
"Oh, Mary," a voice said from behind her. "What have you done?"
Mary's mother stood at the doorway, her smile sad and strained. She didn't look angry, but she never really did anymore. It was like the fight had gone out of her.
Mary put the bottle back down and began to cry. "I'm sorry-"
"Don't apologise. Don't you dare think that this is your fault."
"But it is!" Mary cried harder, "I just didn't want him to hit you anymore."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Her mother's teary eyes widened in shock. "I didn't-oh, baby, I'm so sorry. I would never, ever let anyone hurt you, you know that, right?"
"I don't want you to be hurt, either."
The front door opened again before Mary's mother could reply.
"I'm scared," Mary said.
"I know, baby, listen to me. I want you to run up and go into your room and don't come out until I tell you to, okay?"
"I don't want to."
"You have to."
That night when Mary pressed her ear against the crack in the door for hours, the only thing louder than her stepfather's rage was the sound of her own sobs.
Mary was brought back to the kitchen by the sound of a resounding crash, right beside her. She grabbed a second bottle, but knew that it was too late. What she'd been running from was already here.
She could've sworn she heard Lily's voice, encouraging her to keep going, as she fumbled with the lighter. Mary glanced up to where the Death Eater advanced on her, nausea rising in her chest. She wouldn't think about those empty eyes, or the skin stained with blood and death. She thought of life, of bright red hair and a smile just for her. The lighter flicked on and the cloth clinging to the bottle went up in flames.
Mary hit the zombie square in the face and watched it burn. The creature didn't struggle; it continued to stumble towards her, rotting and breaking and dying, until she was left with the remnants of a life that she had set ablaze.
Lily was there when she turned. Mary fell into her best friend's arms.
"I'm so mad at you right now," Lily whispered.
You saved my life, Mary thought.
"I'm sorry," Mary whispered back, because she'd never felt anything other than that.