#nonbinary james

“They’re… I hate using ‘creepy’ for things like this but, they’re creepy. The way they move and look at people is off putting. One of them also has their limbs bent at wrong angles.”

Regulus balks at that, “What?”

“I don’t know what happened to them, and being honest, I don’t really want to find out.” James hums, guiding them down one of the hallways that leads towards the kitchen, “One of their feet looks like it's one backwards, there’s a bone sticking out of their elbow, and their other leg looks like it's hyperextended. It’s actually really disturbing.”

“Oh Merlin.” Regulus grimaces, “Do you see them everytime?”

“It’s like they’ve decided that their job is to guard the entrance to the dungeon. They stand by the door and glare at me whenever I look in. Or whenever I’m talking to your friends outside it. They’ve never left the common room either, so I think they just like it there.”

“That’s…”

“I don’t like it.” James shakes their head, “Something that my mum was always insistent on was that I don’t… discriminate, I guess, against ghosts by judging their appearance but I’m just put on edge when I see something like that, especially when they glare at me all the time.”

“I don’t blame you.” Regulus hums, “Where are we going?”

“To the kitchens, I want snacks and Remus asked that I grab him some chocolate puff pastries since I was coming down here anyway.”

“You can get things like that from the kitchens?”

James shrugs, “If you ask nicely. A lot of the house elves in the kitchen actually love cooking and offering us treats when you treat them right. They also let me cook sometimes when I’m missing home.” Regulus hums but doesn’t say anything else. James gets them into the kitchen by whispering something to one of the unassuming portraits in the hallway. They head inside and are greeted by one of the house elves. 

“Hello Coopey.” James smiles.

“What can Coopey get for Master Potter?”

“Do you have any welsh cakes that I can have?”

Coopey seemingly takes a moment to think before he shakes his head, “Coopey doesn’t but he will make some for Master.”

“If it’s not trouble.”

“Never! Anything else for Master Potter?”

“Remus was wanting some chocolate puffs, if you don’t mind.” Then they turn to Regulus, “Did you want something?”

Regulus shakes his head, “I’ll just have some of your welsh cakes.” 

James nods then looks back at Coopey, “That’s all, thank you.” Then the house elf is bounding off further into the kitchens, and they sit down on some stools by the entrance.

“Thank you.” Regulus murmurs.

“Hm? For what?” James tilts their head.

“Being nice to the house elves. They’re so often mistreated, it’s nice to see someone actually care about them and treat them right.”

“Of course, I mean… they deserve to be treated kindly, especially since they’re doing things for us in our everyday lives.” “Do you have house elves at home?”

“No, my mum grew up in a muggle household and loves taking care of the house herself. We keep our house and make food the muggle way because we like it.”

“I’m sure that was weird for Sirius.”

James snorts, “He’s still not allowed in our kitchen from when he almost burned it down the first time he tried to make himself food.” 

“I’d expect nothing less from him.” Regulus shakes his head, smiling at the thought of his brother, “He was always dependent on our house elf, though he didn’t treat him very well.”

“Kreacher, right?” James asks, shocking Regulus.

“Yeah… how did you know that?”

James hums, looking off into where Coopey had disappeared, “Sirius has mentioned him a couple times, never talked about him fondly but he’s said his name a couple times, and that you always really liked him.”

Regulus nods, “He was one of the only people that I could confide in when it came to the house, even more so when Sirius started distancing himself from me, he was the only one that was kind to me. That’s… it’s part of the reason that I haven’t taken you up on your offer to leave. I don’t want to leave Kreacher alone in that house.”

“I see.” James hums, opening their mouth to say more, but they don’t get the chance to before Coopey is showing back up with a basket in his hands.

“Here, Master Potter.” The house elf says, offering the basket to James, who takes it gratefully.

“Thank you so much, Coopey, these smell amazing.”

“Of course! Now shoo, shoo!” He scolds, starting to push the two of them out of the kitchens.

James laughs, “Alright, we’re going. Have a good night, Coopey.” And with that, James is guiding Regulus out of the kitchens. The painting slams shut behind them and James jerks their chin, “They don’t like us staying in their space longer than we need to.”

“Most house elves don’t. They like their room to do their work, or so Kreacher has told me.”

“To be fair, my mum also shoves people out of the kitchen when she’s cooking and we’re just standing around,” James laughs, opening the door to the empty classroom that they’ve started to use, “You’d like her a lot. I think she’d like you, too.” Regulus swallows, not wanting to let on how much their words get to him. Nervous as he might be about meeting the Potters, some of the stories that both Sirius and James have told him have almost created a sense of yearning. 

“Maybe I’ll try to come over for Christmas break.”

“That’d be great.” James smiles, and Regulus swears that it genuinely lights up the entire room, “We’d love to have you.” 

“I’ll…” Regulus clears his throat, having to look away from James, blindly reaching for one of the welsh cakes that James has in the basket Coopey gave them, “I’ll try to convince them to let me stay at the castle over winter hols, then I can go with you and Sirius.” 

“I’d love that.” Regulus absolutely prays to whoever is listening that James isn’t able to see the way his cheeks have tinged with what is likely bright red.

“That’s more what I wanted to ask you,” Regulus says, “You looked freaked out at dinner earlier. I wanted to make sure that you were okay.” 

They’re quiet for a moment before looking out at the stars around them, “There’s someone… new. They’ve been wandering around the Hufflepuff table at meal times the past couple of days. I’ve been trying to ignore them.” 

“Is it because they freak you out?”

James shakes their head, “I always try to ignore spirits because it’s not my business and they… yeah, they freak me out. But I finally saw this spirit that’s been wandering around the table. I don’t know who they’re following but…” They shake their head again, more trying to shake the thought from their mind. 

Regulus moves closer, putting a hand on their arm, “That’s not all is it?”

“I can take a lot,” James breathes, “I’ve seen quite a bit and can handle it but… this person. Almost their entire face is burnt, like I can only make out a portion of their face, their hair is all matted, and their clothing is charred it’s… it just-” James closes their eyes, “I don’t know. They just…”

“I’m sorry, James.” Regulus hums, “Do you want to keep talking about them or do you want a distraction?”

“A distraction would be nice.” James sighs, “I don’t know, it’s… I don’t know why they’re sticking in my mind so much but I can’t stop thinking about their face.”

“Alright, we’ll find something to take your mind off it, yeah.” 

James wraps their arm around his lower back, swallowing, “Yeah.”

“How did it break?” Sirius asks, peering at the ring in their hands. 

James shows him with a tilt of their hand, “It broke down the middle. Like the crystal came out of the wrapping and the metal… snapped.” 

“That’s never happened.” Pete says, making the others jump as they figured that he was asleep, “You’ve given me so many of those rings before and only the early ones had the crystals fall from the wrapping.”

“And they’ve never snapped like that.” James shakes their head, “And I wrap them secure… This is weird.”

“So it probably means something.” Regulus hums. 

James nods, “Yeah, but the question is what. I want to have you try scrying but…” they look up, taking a deep breath, “I’m trying to figure out the best way for him to do it.”

“You could always have him do bone scrying.” Pete hums, “You like to do that, and I think it fits the Black family more.”

They nod after a second or two, “Yeah, and I like bone scrying when I’m talking to my spirit guides. Reg, would you be willing to do a scrying session?”

“I’m not good at divination.”

“That’s alright,” James smiles, standing up and walking to their trunk, “You don’t have to be, I can help you with it.” They pull out a small, black velvet bag and a rolled up velvet placemat. They set the objects down on the ground and sit down, groaning. Regulus stands up and joins them on the floor, sitting near them. “I’ve got about 15 bones in this bag,” They say, pulling out a bunch of small-ish bones from the bag and placing them gently on the placemat, “You’re going to take as many as you want, put the others aside, and throw them onto the placemat. You don’t have to do it aggressively, just enough to spread them out a bit, then tell me what shapes you see and I’ll help you figure out what the bones are trying to say. Make sure that, when you throw them, you’re thinking of your question.”

Regulus nods and takes about 8 bones in his hands, allowing James to put the others back in the bag, “So what kind of question should I think of?”

“Something like what the warning is, if there’s someone trying to warn you, or if your spirit guide wants to say something. When we have more of an idea, we can ask a couple more questions.” Regulus nods again and tosses the bones in his hand onto the placemat, watching them settle. When the movement has stopped, James hums, “Now, tell me what shapes you see. Triangles, crosses, just lines, parallel lines, everything. And what question you asked the bones.”

“I asked what the warning was.” Regulus says before pointing at an upside down triangle that he sees, “There’s a triangle, that’s a cross, there’s like a T shape, and that’s just a long bone.” Just now does Regulus notice that there are small markings on the bones. 

“Sitting horizontally.” James nods, “I’ll just tell you what each of these shapes typically represent and you can draw your own conclusions. Just use your intuition. Your first gut is the correct one.” They wait until Regulus nods his understanding before they start listing off the shapes, “An upside down triangle means influence or something shrinking away and the sigils on the bone mean childhood, family, and power. A cross means that there’s a strong wish and the bones in it are my love and passion bones, A t-shape means that the top bone, which is the woman bone, is blocking the vertical one, another love one. And a lone bone sitting horizontally typically means some sort of feminine energy, and it’s another power sigil. Does any of that make sense?” 

Regulus thinks for a while before he hears Sirius gasp behind him, “Oh shit.”

“What?” He asks, turning to his brother.

Sirius stands up and walks towards them, crouching down by the placemat. He holds his hand over the triangle, “Mother’s power over you is shrinking.” He moves his hand to the cross, “You’ve got a strong wish for love, platonic, familial, romantic, or whatever.” Then he points to the t-shape, “Mother is stopping your ability to love, and…” then he moves his hand to the lone bone, “Mother is going to do something.”

“Like show up to the train station.” Regulus concludes, looking up at Sirius, “She’s going to be there to make sure that I’m actually at Hogwarts and not going somewhere over the holidays. She refuses to accept that I'm actually planning to stay at Hogwarts.”

“Shit.” Pete swears, “That’ll be an issue.”

“Not if we give him the cloak before we get off the train station. With enough chaos I doubt anyone would notice the cloak as long as we get around carefully.” Remus hums, “I know that you don’t like bringing it when you leave on holidays, but…”

James nods, “It might be our best bet to get him safely off the train.” 

“Wait,” Regulus interrupts, “What cloak?”

“I have an invisibility cloak.” James explains.

“You have an invisibility cloak?” Regulus asks once again, “Is that how you guys get around the school without getting caught?”

“That and another thing.” Sirius shrugs, “But that’s its own can of worms.”

“Either way,” James interjects, “We’ll need to bring the cloak so Regulus can get off the train without running into Walburga. Reg, you’ll have to tell your friends about it, which I’m sure they know that you’re going with us, just in case she asks them since if she’s going to be there, she’ll want to catch you in a lie.”

Remus nods, “And before we get off the train, you’ll have to come to our room so you can get off with us and we can give you the cloak without anybody finding out about it.”

Regulus nods, “I can do that. I’ll… I’ll talk to my friends tonight.”