Chapter Text
One Year Later - Regulus POV
“Reg? Baby? Wake up,” James whispered, causing Regulus to jolt to consciousness.
“Fuck off, Potter,” he murmured into his boyfriend’s pillow, rolling back over. After finally, finally finishing his OWLs at the end of term, he was enjoying his summer. James could go away until a decent hour.
“It’s Cas, baby. She’s here. She seems stressed,” James’s concerned voice made him blink a few times and focus on the hazel eyes in front of him.
He sat up, groaning. “Is everyone okay? Her grandparents? Brothers?”
“Dunno,” James shrugged worriedly, helping him up and handing him one of his own pairs of pajama pants. “She said she needed to talk to you specifically."
Heart racing, Regulus adjusted his shirt, which still read Barty and Evan’s Bitch in faded lettering. Though the spell had long ago worn off, it was still his favorite shirt to sleep in.
After a year with James, he didn’t care much about what he wore to sleep. He had forgone trying to get away with wearing his binder all the time around the older boy when James had sat him down and told him in no uncertain terms that he should feel comfortable, and there was no way binding his chest all the time was comfortable. So after James sincerely offered to sleep blindfolded, if only to make Regulus feel okay without the binder, Regulus had (very nervously) allowed him to see him without one. Of course, James had been amazing about it.
He still loved the shirt, though, and anxiously explained it to the Gryffindor soon after that initial conversation, a bit nervous he wouldn’t get the joke. He needn’t have been worried, though. Instead of dealing with an angry James, he witnessed his boyfriend almost choke on his own spit, nearly dying of his own laughter.
“Crouch and Rosier are really growing on me,” James had laughed, holding up the shirt. “You should wear it around Sirius. See what he says.”
This morning, though, Regulus was hardly thinking about what he was wearing.
“Dorcas?” he whispered tiredly as he crept into the kitchen alone, not wanting to wake Effie or Monty. He’d gotten quite good at sneaking around the house, tiptoeing into James’s room most nights. “What’s wrong?”
“Reg,” she said in a relieved voice, standing from the table and pulling him into a hug. “Merlin, I’m so sorry to bother you, I just…I’m in a panic, and fuck, I don’t want to fuck this up, and-”
“Did something happen with Marlene?” he asked, still confused. There weren’t many things that would bring her to the Potters’ at four in the morning.
“No,” she shook her head, a funny look on her face. “No, this is about Mason.” But she grimaced as she said the name and Regulus tilted his head.
“What is it? Is he okay?” he asked nervously. He hadn’t seen the twins in years. “He’s starting Hogwarts this year, right? Zaden as well?”
“Er, yes,” she nodded, pulling Regulus to the table and looking at him nervously. “Correct to everything. Except…” He watched as she gave him a meaningful look. “I don’t think ‘he.’”
“What?” Regulus asked, but he felt his heart skip a beat.
“Erm…I just left because we’d been talking,” Dorcas whispered, eyes filling with tears. “Mason was crying. Said a lot of things, but,” she took a deep breath, “I think she’s like you, Reg.”
He froze, not breathing. “Like…trans?” he asked, blinking.
“I’m not a boy,” Dorcas murmured, seemingly repeating what she’s been told. “He… she …kept saying it over and over. She was panicking because of dorms, and bathrooms, and-”
But Regulus breathed in quickly, nodding. Because oh, he remembered. The consuming fear at the thought of being forced into a room and a group he didn’t belong to for seven years. “What did you say?” he asked, remembering how wonderful Sirius had been. How Sirius had been the only reason he'd made it through those moments.
“I told hi-her it’d be okay,” Dorcas said softly, looking scared. “I said we’d figure it out. That I was here, and we’d do something. And...Merlin, Reg, I hope you’re not mad, but I told her about you and-”
“It’s okay,” he breathed, and he actually meant it. “That was good, Cas, that was really good. What did she say?”
“She wants to talk to you,” Dorcas murmured, looking apologetic. “I know it’s not like…your job, or anything. But I could really use your help on this, Reg. I just want her to be happy.”
He felt a pang in his chest, reminded so much of Sirius he almost cried. “Of course,” he mumbled. “I’ll do whatever you need.”
Because he didn’t want this girl to go through what he did.
“Hey,” Regulus smiled, holding his hand out to the small girl, who half-hid behind Dorcas. “I’m not sure if you remember me? I’m Regulus.”
“Faith,” she replied softly. “After my mum.”
He grinned, both at the name and Dorcas’s proud smile. “I’m brewing a potion you might like. Cas said I could tell you about it if you like. Then once I do, we can talk to Dorothy and John about it? See if it’s something you might want someday?”
Faith nodded, stepping out from behind Dorcas and approaching the cauldron. “Cas said you’re like me,” she mumbled, staring as Regulus began to shop ingredients.
“A Ravenclaw? No, I’m a Slytherin. Much better,” Regulus deadpanned, throwing the girl a smirk when she looked at him anxiously. “But I am trans, yes.” After a year, it felt so much more natural to say. He smiled to himself, a ridiculous pang of pride rolling through him.
Faith tilted her head and squinted her eyes. “You were a girl?” she asked bluntly.
He considered that, trying to decide what the best answer would be. “My parents thought so. But I’m a boy.”
“Like I’m a girl,” She nodded, grinning. “People think I’m a boy, and my body has boy parts, but I’m not a boy.”
“You’re a girl,” Regulus agreed, smiling gently. “No matter what other people say, it only matters what you feel.” For some reason, it made him feel good in that moment. To remember that.
Faith nodded again, beaming. “So this potion helps?”
“Some people who are like us take it, but not everyone. And some people take it for other reasons, too. But it makes it so my body does boy things,” Regulus explained as he started throwing things in the cauldron.
She wrinkled her nose. “I do not want that," she said immediately.
He chuckled. “There’s a different version. Just a change in a few ingredients, and it’ll give you estrogen, instead of testosterone. Do you know what those are?”
Faith nodded. “Cas explained. So it’ll make me not grow a beard, and stuff?”
“Exactly,” Regulus confirmed, smiling.
“Why do you make it? Cas said we can get it at the Healers,” the first year asked, curious eyes bright.
“Well..I used to have to make it for myself. My friends helped,” Regulus said softly, wondering how much to tell her. “My parents…they weren’t okay with who I am. So I broke the rules, and my friends and I made it, because I wanted to be myself anyway. Even though they were mean about it.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “Dorcas said some people can be mean about it.”
Regulus nodded solemnly. “But…my brother and I, we got away from them. We’re staying with…friends. And now my brother’s seventeen, so he’s allowed to sign off on the potion for me,” he said, grinning, remembering how much they’d celebrated on Sirius’s birthday. “I’m just showing you now because I thought it’d be cool.”
“It is,” she mumbled, eyes locked on the bubbling cauldron. “Can my grandparents get it for me?”
“Have you told them?” Regulus asked curiously, remembering how Dorothy had once lied to Walburga for him.
“Yeah,” she whispered, looking at him, smiling a bit. “They said I can be whoever I want to be, I just need to remember to still do my homework.”
He stifled a laugh. “Fair.” Something in him felt so happy, thinking of Dorothy and John accepting her. Calling her Faith. Someday getting her a potion, if that was what she wanted. Knowing it was possible for families to be so lovely filled him with an odd mixture of emotions: sadness for the eleven-year-old version of him; happiness that others didn't have to deal with what he did.
“Regulus?” the Ravenclaw asked, dark eyes staring into his own, looking a bit nervous.
“Hmm?” he hummed, snapping out of his reflection.
“Will it help with the…” she gestured to her stomach, face pained, and Regulus knew what she meant at once.
“You get stomach aches?” he asked, a pang of sadness flooding through him as he remembered how much he hated himself at age eleven.
“Sometimes. It’s a bit better now that I can be in the girls’ dorms and wear skirts and stuff,” she shrugged, frowning. “Do you get them, too?”
He paused, thinking of the last time he’d felt dysphoria. How James had held him, whispering reassurance into his ear. How Sirius had sat up with him and cracked jokes. How he’d had people to talk to and work through it with. “I do,” he said softly. “But you’re going to find a lot of people who help you, okay? You have Cas, and your family, and you have me. And if anyone says anything,” he added, thinking of Ford, “You come to one of us. Alright?”
She nodded, smiling in relief. “Thanks, Regulus.”
“No problem.”
A Few Years Later- James POV
Sirius looked at the small box in his hand, eyes wide. “So, you actually mean it then?”
“Mean it?” James asked, eyebrows narrowing. He knew he was stupid to feel nervous about talking to Sirius about this, but he was. “Of course I bloody well-”
“Oh, I know! It’s just you’ve been saying it since sixth year! ‘I’m gonna marry him, Pads! I’m going to fucking propose tomorrow, he’s so perfect, you don’t even-’”
“Well it’s real this time,” James said, rolling his eyes, trying not to blush.
Sirius grinned teasingly. “About time, mate.”
He swallowed, nerves slowly dissipating. “So you’re okay with it?”
“Okay with it? Merlin, if I wasn’t, Reg would murder me!” Sirius laughed.
But James frowned, because he wanted a real answer, and Sirius sobered up a bit, sensing his best friend's anxiety.
“Yes, James. There’s nobody better for him. We both know that,” Sirius said with a soft smile. “Can I ask, though? Why’s the ring made of…what is that? Rock? You know how Reg is, I’m surprised you didn’t get him diamonds.”
He only smiled, though. “Well, it’s kind of a long story, but…do you remember on Reg’s twelfth birthday? When you made us all send him cards?”
Sirius tilted his head. “Yeah?”
“I put a rock in his card. Told him I hoped his birthday ‘rocked,’” James grinned as Sirius groaned at the horrible joke. “I found out once we started dating that he carried it around for years. Used it like a worry stone, or something? Played with it when he was anxious. He doesn’t really use it anymore, and I thought it would be cool to-”
“James Fleamont Potter, you gave him his engagement ring when he was eleven,” Sirius gasped, but he had a huge grin on his face.
“I didn’t know it would be his engagement ring!” he protested, but he was smiling.
“Sure,” Sirius teased. “Disgusting. How very James of you. Remind me to throw up later.”
“I-”
But he was interrupted by a noise and a shout.
“Jamie, have you seen-?”
And Regulus, who neither of them knew was home from Barty and Evan’s flat, entered the room.
To an outsider, it quite looked like James was proposing to Sirius. He held the ring in front of him, and Sirius was still smiling like an idiot, both of them very close. But Regulus was not an outsider.
“What are you two doing?” Regulus asked, eyes darting from James, to the ring in his hand, to Sirius.
And James, heart beating in his throat, decided that the half-formed plan for a proposal in his head didn’t matter.
Because Regulus, who looked harried and tired and shocked, with his hair all blown every which-way and a stain on his shirt, had never looked more beautiful. And Sirius was here, and James had the ring, and he really didn’t want to wait another moment. Because really, as Sirius had pointed out, he’d given Regulus the ring years ago anyway.
“Er…I have a question for you, actually,” James said softly, sinking to the ground, ignoring Sirius’s gasp.
“J-James,” Regulus stuttered, tripping forward, standing in front of his boyfriend.
“Regulus Arcturus Black…”