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This is one of those fics that I loved so much that I knew I was going to bind it as soon as I finished it. Especially since I'd recently created a typeset for Persuasion that I knew would work perfectly for this fic.

Some new techniques I used for this bind:

First time I did a cutout on the cover. I wanted to have it peek through the end papers but I just could not figure out how to do it. So I decided to mount the art on the backside of the cover and then hide it behind the endpapers.

First time I speckled the edges! It's not nearly as messy as I thought it'd be, but I do have an extreme aversion to the texture of toothbrush bristles, so I had to be a grown up and get over it, because it is the easiest way to do these.

The endpapers on my bind were made by my beautiful and lovely friend @maleekamolscreates, and the ones I used for Fluffy's bind are my beloved Ink Drops cardstock.

I used white HTV for the lettering on my copy, but silver on the author copy (which now I wish I'd used on mine, but no big deal.)

The gorgeous art was made by @substellaris, commissioned by @upon-poppyhills.

barty: stabbing.

evan: same.

pandora: okay, but stabbing isn't an emotion. it's more of an activity that i hope you don't do to me.

pandora: see, an emotion is more of a feeling-

A warm breeze tugged at the picnic blanket's corners. Draco stood, one hand resting on the shoulder of their small son, and swept his other arm in a broad, theatrical arc across the view.

"Everything the sunlight touches," Draco intoned, his voice dropping into a portentous baritone, "from this peak to the river over yonder—"

"Oh Godric," Harry snorted, sensing where this was going.

"—will one day belong to you."

"Merlin." Harry barked a laugh and covered his mouth with a hand to keep further giggles in.

A beat of silence followed, broken only by the distant cry of a buzzard. Draco lowered his arm, his performance clearly cut short. "What?"

It wasn’t the exact quote, and Harry had only ever heard and seen snippets of the film through the gap in his cupboard door when Dudley had commandeered the telly. But the pompous, proprietary delivery was unmistakable.

"Lion King, really?" Harry asked, dropping his hand to give Draco an incredulous look.

A faint, familiar smirk touched Draco’s lips. "Oh, the Malfoys have no claim on the British throne," he conceded airily, as if the idea were merely a minor bureaucratic oversight. "But that doesn’t mean our Leo isn’t my sweet little prince."

"I’m not little anymore!" The five-year-old complained, puffing out his chest where he stood pinned under his father’s hand.

Whispering voices awoke James, far too early in the morning for his liking. As he grumbled and moved a little under the weight of the man half on top of him, he tried to take a moment to appreciate the feeling of Regulus in his arms…

…only to be rudely interrupted by Sirius, Peter, and Remus talking excitedly outside of his door.

It made him feel slightly better that Regulus, who was stirring as well, looked about ready to kill.

“....think he has a girl in there?” Sirius was whispering gleefully, chuckling to himself. “Fuck, we leave him for one weekend and he gets lucky, eh?”

“...shhh, Padfoot! They’re probably sleeping!” Remus admonished, but he also sounded highly amused. “Let them rest. Plus they may want to hide it, we weren’t supposed to be back until this evening–”

“If they wanted to hide it, they shouldn’t have left their clothes strewn all over the hall!” Peter interrupted with a laugh. “Look, this t-shirt is way too small to be James’s, wonder who it belongs to?”

James tensed, arms still around Regulus.

“Hey, wait a minute…” Sirius said suspiciously, his tone shifting drastically.

“Fuck,” James murmured under his breath, stomach sinking.

The shorter man, however, didn’t seem extremely bothered. Throwing James a smirk, he pressed a heated kiss to his lips and mumbled, “I had fun. Talk soon if he doesn’t kill you, okay?”

And when Regulus kissed him like that, how could he be scared?

So he watched as the other man dressed as much as he could, then opened the door, expression completely unbothered, like he frequently answered the door to James’s bedroom in the flat he shared with his best friends. “Morning,” he drawled. Then he looked at the shirt Sirius was now holding. “Stop stealing my clothes, Sirius,” he muttered, snatching the shirt and sliding it over his head.

Everyone gaped.

Then– “Bye, Jamie,” Regulus said with a grin, striding away.

they were her best friends and now they're destroying lives. she would've died for them once but now they're trying to kill her.

news spreads about regulus black's death and while the order rejoices in the loss of the death eater, dorcas is thinking about the literature nerd who stocked up on her favourite candy and laughed a bit too quietly at jokes cause he was never allowed to be loud, the boy who set aside books about feminism and revolution cause he knew she loved them, the usually quiet person who shocked everyone by hexing all the misogynistic quidditch players who made fun of her when she got captain and defended her even when he was fighting for himself.

mad eye moody loses an eye, but reveals that evan rosier is dead and dorcas loses a part of her heart because that's silent but snarky and sarcastic person who had the entire friend group losing their compsure and laughing like maniacs in seconds, the first person she came out to, the first person to hug her after she did it, the first person who said he might be a bit like her in that regard, the first person who made her feel safe and the person she could always talk to and trust.

the order whispers in hushed tones about barty crouch jr, the heartless criminal who tortured the longbottoms for hours on end and dorcas can't breathe cause that was once the boy who made the craziest jokes whenever he had the slightest inkling dorcas might be feeling sad and dyed his hair so slytherin kids who didn't wanted to be something other than perfect and uptight could feel comfortable coming to him for help even if he put on a show of being cruel and crazy, because he knew how it felt to be forced into perfection.

she visits pandora and she thinks that she at least has one person with her. but pandora's lost herself to this grief, smiles too tight and a maniac glint in her eye which makes it obvious she's experimenting something to get them all out of this, to somehow go back to who they were. but dorcas can only mourn the girl she lived with for 7 years, the girl who saw the joy and happiness in everything around her and made dorcas see it too, the girl who rolled her eyes with dorcas when the boys did something stupid and the girl who's laughter sounded like freedom and sunlight.

after marlene's death, dorcas doesn't really care for anyone or anything that was once part of her life. she kills and kills and kills till she can find death himself. but every time a death eater she's hurting has regulus' black hair or evan's electric blue eyes or barty's maniac grin, part of her wants to stop and beg them to become the people they once were.

Sirius: Yeah, we can keep a secret.

Marlene: What?

Sirius: Yeah, me and James are like a vault. No one else will know.

Marlene: No, I want you to know. I don't want James to know.

James Potter adored pet names. He adored even more that using them on one Regulus Black caused the younger boy to blush a particular shade of scarlet which made him look absolutely stunning. Plus…he really couldn’t stop himself from doting on the Slytherin.

Whenever he saw Regulus? “Hi, love.”

When he was treated with one of the younger boy’s rare smiles? “You’re stunning, darling, you know that?”

And when Regulus finally trusted him enough to cry into his arms? “I’m here, baby, I’ve got you.”

It was natural. It felt right. 

It also didn’t matter in the slightest to him that Regulus didn’t return the sentiment. Instead, Regulus showed his love through teasing insults and the use of James’s last name with a little half-smile on his face. He made James’s stomach flip when his eyes sparkled and somehow, the word ‘idiot’ became something fond. 

So James really wasn’t expecting it when Regulus began to call him ‘ma vie.’ He also didn’t dare question it.

Maybe it was because every time he heard it, his felt his knees give way and his muscles melt. Or maybe it was because he was a bit scared that it was some sort of secret insult. But either way, he didn’t ask. Until one day, he simply couldn’t stop thinking about it anymore, and he demanded that Sirius, who also, of course, spoke French, translate the short phrase.

“‘Ma vie?’” he repeated, eyebrows furrowing. “That means ‘my life.’ Why, what’re you–?”

But James was already turning on his heel, heading out of the room.